The Allied powers (the UK, France, Italy, Japan, and others) who won the war signed the 1920 Treaty of SГЁvres with what was left of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds ended up where they are - without a homeland - because of the Western powers who drew the regionвЂ™s map after World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, although not exclusively, and Kurds, depending on the region, are also Shiite Muslims, Christians, and other sects. The Syrian Kurdish population is among the smallest, roughly around 1.7 million people concentrated in northern Syria. The total population of Kurds in the Middle East and in the broader diaspora varies, but most estimates put it somewhere between 25 million and 40 million. TheyвЂ™re considered one of the worldвЂ™s largest stateless nations. The Kurds are an ethnic group whose population is primarily spread across Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Armenia. This story is developing rapidly, but hereвЂ™s a guide to help you understand what is happening, why itвЂ™s happening, and what might come next.

The situation is complex, with broad and still-unpredictable consequences for Syria. TurkeyвЂ™s offensive may have felt like a dramatic escalation but it had been long-planned, and in many ways, entirely predictable. Shortly after, Trump ordered the withdrawal of the 50 or so American troops still in northeastern Syria, clearing the way for a Turkish invasion and leaving Kurdish forces and thousands of civilians at risk. And that uneasy relationship created a rift between the US and Turkey, a key NATO ally, which sees the Kurds as an existential threat.Д®xperts have long called the US-Kurdish partnership a вЂњticking time bomb.вЂќ That bomb finally went off, quickly and decisively, after President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with ErdoДџan last Sunday. But that alliance was born of necessity and desperation it existed because of a common enemy in ISIS. The US partnership with the Kurds in Syria began during the Obama administration but intensified under Trump, who armed the fighters. A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter is reflected on a broken mirror in Baghouz, Syria, on the frontline of fighting to expel the Islamic State group from the area on March 12, 2019.

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