The Kurds, descendants of Indo-European nomads, call this region Kurdistan , and have lived there at least 2,000 years.

All major Kurdish political leaders make it clear that they consider the city unfairly cleaved from what they call Kurdistan, an idea popular in the community.

This helps remove Turkish fears of a territorial threat from an autonomous region that might turn into an independent country called Kurdistan.

Which is why when U.S. units crossed the borders into what everybody called Kurdistan, you could take off your body armor and relax.

A tax register (or defter) dating back to 1527, mentions an area called vilayet-i Kurdistan, which included 7 major and 11 minor emirates (or principalities).

The lowlands of southern Kurdistan are called lower Kurdistan.

Besides, they add, there is further evidence of Iraq's crimes against humanity in what the Kurds call Kurdistan.

They wanted a country, in other words, of their very own, which they would call Kurdistan.

Its area was much smaller than what is now called Kurdistan, and was mainly concentrated in the south of Lake Van and around Diyarbakir.

The area is now called Kurdistan, near what was Armenia.