The Kurds are a non-Iranian people (a classification that is 'ethnic' than linguistic in the case of Kurds) inhabiting a mountainous area of Southwest Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran as well as smaller sections of Syria, Armenia and Lebanon. Kurds speak the mostly mutually intelligible dialects of the Kurdish language, which has Indo-European roots. Ranging anywhere from 25 to 27 million people, the Kurds comprise one of the largest ethnic groups without their own country in the world. For over a century, many Kurds have campaigned and fought for the right to 'self-determination' in an autonomous homeland known as "Kurdistan". The governments of those countries with sizable Kurdish populations are actively opposed to the possibility of a Kurdish state, believing such a development would require them to give up parts of their own national territories. Kurdistan is both the name of a geographic region and a cultural region in the Middle East named after the Kurds. Its borders are hard to define, as none of the states in question acknowledge Kurdistan as a demographic or geographic region, but it is generally held to include the regions with large Kurdish populations. The boundaries of the modern ethnographic region of Kurdistan (i.e. the region populated by Kurds) overlaps with the historical ethnic homelands of the Assyrian people and the Armenian people. According to one account, Kurdistan includes 25 million people in a 190,000 km2 (74,000 sq. mi) area. Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in Kurdistan, which covers an area as big as France. The Kurdistan Province in Iran and the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq are both included in the usual definition of Kurdistan. Kurdish people are found in regions far from their ancestral homeland. The largest Kurdish enclave outside Kurdistan is the Kurdish region in north Khorasan, in north-eastern Iran. Other scattered smaller communities are found in the Alburz mountain range in northern Iran, Guilan province in northern Iran and Sistan and Baluchistan province in southeastern Iran. Kurds were first promised an independent nation-state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. The Treaty of Sèvres divided the former Ottoman Empire between the United Kingdom, Turkey, and others. Independence was granted to Armenia as well. Since that time Kurdish nationalists have continued to seek independence in an area approximating that identified at Sèvres. However, the idea of an independent nation-state came to a halt when the surrounding countries joined to reject the independence of Kurdistan.
The following are some links which I find useful:
Ethnic minorities singled out for attack in Iran
Status of the Kurds in Iran and West Azerbaijan province of Iran
Human Rights First
Kurdish people
Kurdish Jews