n.
Mountainous region of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, inhabited predominantly by Kurds.
It covers about 74,000 sq mi (191,660 sq km), and its chief towns are Diyarbak 0131; r, Bitlis, and Van in Turkey, Mosul and Kark 016B; k in Iraq, and Kerm 0101; nsh 0101; h in Iran. Since early times the region has been the home of the Kurds , a people whose ethnic origins are uncertain. The Treaty of Sèvres , signed in 1920, provided for the recognition of a Kurdish state, but the agreement was never ratified.