Animosity between Kurds, Arabs dates to seventh century

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Kurds and Arabs belong to two distinct ethnic groups that date their animosity to the seventh century. Their members predominantly share a belief in Islam, but speak different languages, trace their origins to different geographic locations and have different customs and traditions.

The Kurds are related ethnically to Iranians and their language is akin to the Indo-Iranian languages spoken today in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

They've inhabited northeastern Iraq, northwestern Iran and parts of present-day Turkey, Syria and Armenia for centuries. They lived largely autonomously until the seventh century, when Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula conquered them. They maintained their separate identity, however, despite subsequent conquests, by Mongols in the 13th to 15th centuries and by the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.