Short answers, pulled from the story.
An estimated 30 to 45 million people identify as Kurdish today. This population constitutes the largest ethnic group in the world without a sovereign state. They inhabit a rugged, mountainous region known as Kurdistan that spans the borders of four modern nations.
The Treaty of Sèvres was signed in 1920 and outlined provisions for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state. The treaty was never ratified, and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 set the boundaries of the Turkish state instead. This geopolitical decision effectively ended the Western Allies' push for Kurdish statehood.
The Kurdistan Workers Party was founded in 1978 by Kurdish students. The organization initially adopted Marxist-Leninist ideology before abandoning it to focus on cultural and political rights. Between 1984 and 1999, the group engaged in open war with the Turkish military.
The genocidal campaign known as the Anfal was conducted between 1986 and 1989. This campaign led to the destruction of over two thousand villages and the killing of 182,000 Kurdish civilians. The most infamous attack occurred in 1988 at the town of Halabja where chemical weapons killed 5,000 civilians instantly.
The UN Security Council passed resolution 688 on the 5th of April 1991. This resolution condemned the repression of Iraqi Kurdish civilians and demanded that Iraq end its repressive measures. The resolution followed the collapse of the Kurdish uprising in March 1991 which caused 1.5 million Kurds to flee their homes.