Kirkuk is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate, located 238 kilometres north of Baghdad. The city is home to a diverse population of Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds. Kirkuk sits on the ruins of the original Kirkuk Citadel which sits near the Khasa River.
Jalal Talabani was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the sixth president of Iraq from 2006 to 2014, as well as the president of the Governing Council of Iraq. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq. He is known as Mam Jalal amongst the Kurds.
Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northwestern Iran. Much of the geographical and cultural region of Iraqi Kurdistan is part of the Kurdistan Region (KRI), an autonomous region recognized by the Constitution of Iraq. As with the rest of Kurdistan, and unlike most of the rest of Iraq, the region is inland and mountainous.
The Peshmerga is the Kurdish branch of the Iraqi Armed Forces. They are the military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, are responsible for the security of Kurdistan Region. These subsidiaries include Asayish, Parastin u Zanyarî and the Zeravani (Gendarmerie). The history of Peshmerga dates back to 18th century, starting out as a strictly tribal pseudo-military border guard under the Ottomans and Safavids and later changing to a well-trained, disciplined guerrilla force in the 19th century.
The Kingdom of Kurdistan was a short-lived Kurdish state proclaimed in the city of Sulaymaniyah following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Officially, the territory involved was under the jurisdiction of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.
Dildar, born Yûnis Reuf was a Kurdish poet and political activist, best known for writing the Kurdish national anthem Ey Reqîb.
Arab Shamilov was a Yazidi Kurdish novelist who lived in the Soviet Union. He was born in the city of Kars in present-day north-eastern Turkey.
Hemin Mukriyani or Hêmin Mukriyānī (1921–1986) was the pen name for Seyed Mohammad-Amin Shaikholislami Mukri, Kurdish poet, journalist, translator, and literary critic.
Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Duhok, Erbil, Halabja, and Sulaymaniyah and bordering Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurdistan Region encompasses most of Iraqi Kurdistan but excludes the disputed territories of Northern Iraq, contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad since 1992 when autonomy was realized. The Kurdistan Region Parliament is situated in Erbil, but the constitution of the Kurdistan Region declares the disputed city of Kirkuk to be the capital of the Kurdistan Region. When the Iraqi Army withdrew from most of the disputed areas in mid-2014 because of the ISIL offensive in Northern Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga entered the areas and held control there until Iraq retook the areas in October 2017.
The Iraqi Turkmens, also referred to as Iraqi Turks, Turkish-Iraqis, the Turkish minority in Iraq, and the Iraqi-Turkish minority are Iraqis of Turkic origin who mostly adhere to a Turkish heritage and identity. Whilst Turkic migration to Iraq began in the 7th century, followed by the Seljuk conquest of 1055, today most Iraqi Turkmens are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq from Anatolia during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in Iraq between 1535 and 1919. Iraqi Turkmen share close cultural, historic, linguistic and religious ties with Turkish people in Turkey as well as Turkish communities in other post-Ottoman modern nation states, including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Syria; thus, they do not identify themselves with the Turkmen of Turkmenistan and Central Asia. The Iraqi Turkmens form the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after the Arabs and Kurds.
Rafiq Hilmi was a Kurdish historian, writer and politician born in Kirkuk. He was founder of the Kurdish party Hîwa in 1938 and author of many books on the history of Kurdistan and Kurdish language. After attending school in Sulaimania and Baghdad, he continued his studies at the Military Academy and Technical School of Istanbul.
Maruf Khaznadar or Marif Xeznedar, (1930–2010), is a contemporary Kurdish academic and writer.
Kosrat Rasul Ali, also known as Kosret Rasoul Ali, is an Iraqi Kurdish politician, leader of the Supreme Political Council of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), veteran Peshmerga military leader, former Prime Minister, and former Vice President of the Kurdistan Region.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party, usually abbreviated as KDP or PDK, is the largest party in Iraqi Kurdistan and the senior partner in the Kurdistan Regional Government. It was founded in 1946 in Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan. The party states that it combines "democratic values and social justice to form a system whereby everyone in Kurdistan can live on an equal basis with great emphasis given to rights of individuals and freedom of expression."
The Republic of Mahabad or the Republic of Kurdistan was a short-lived Kurdish self-governing unrecognized state in present-day Iran, from 22 January to 15 December 1946. The Republic of Mahabad, a puppet state of the Soviet Union, arose alongside the Azerbaijan People's Government, a similarly short-lived unrecognized Soviet puppet state.
Iraqi Kurds are people born in or residing in Iraq who are of Kurdish origin. The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Iraq, comprising between 20% to 26.5% of the country's population.
An independence referendum for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq was held on 25 September 2017, with preliminary results showing approximately 92.73 percent of votes cast in favour of independence. Despite reporting that the independence referendum would be non-binding, the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) characterised it as binding, although they claimed that an affirmative result would trigger the start of state building and negotiations with Iraq rather than an immediate declaration of independence of Kurdistan. The referendum's legality was rejected by the federal government of Iraq.
Czech Republic–Kurdistan Region relations are bilateral relations between the Czech Republic and the Kurdistan Region. The Czech Republic is represented in the Kurdistan Region through a consulate general in Erbil since 2006, while the Kurdistan region has no representation in the Czech Republic. Relations between the two are characterized by high level talks and cooperation against ISIS. Kurdish President Massoud Barzani visited the Czech Republic in 2015, meeting President Miloš Zeman and other senior government officials. In November 2015, Czech President Miloš Zeman said that he believes the Kurdistan Region will soon become independent.
The 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, also known as the Kirkuk Crisis, was a conflict in which the Iraqi government retook disputed territories in Iraq which had been held by the Peshmerga since ISIL's Northern Iraq offensive in 2014. The conflict began on 15 October 2017 after tensions arising from the Kurdistan Region independence referendum of 25 September. The tension between the federal Iraqi government and Kurdistan Region escalated into conflict when the Peshmerga ignored repeated warnings to return Kirkuk to Iraqi government forces. Part of the conflict was the Battle of Kirkuk, when Iraqi forces regained control of the city.
Yaşar Kaya was a Turkish-Kurdish politician and publisher of the pro-Kurdish newspaper Özgür Gündem. Together with authors like Ismail Besikçi and Musa Anter, he was a co-founders of the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul in 1992.