It is often claimed (for example Mojab 2001) that the Kurds are the world's largest stateless ethnic group. Kurdish populations are found in a contiguous area called Kurdistan that arcs across four states: Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Additionally, around a million Kurdish people live in Western countries, having migrated there in the past several decades. Only Iraqi Kurds living in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq live under Kurdish political control, bu…