This year, the Voice of America Kurdish Service marks the twentieth anniversary of its service to Kurdish-speakers in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East and the Caucasus.
Most of the thirty million or so ethnic Kurds live in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and northern Syria.
Separated by national borders and local conflicts, the Kurdish people are spread far and wide, making the flow of information, and of even basic trans-national communication among the groups, problematic.
In 1992, the Voice of America recognized a growing need to provide reliable news and information to Kurds; a need that, over time, has only increased. In those early days, the Kurdish Service aired one fifteen minute radio segment a day, broadcast in the two major dialects of the Kurdish people, Kurmanji and Sorani. But over the years, Kurdish Service broadcasting gradually expanded, adding a variety of programming to reflect the interests of the audience, and increased its presence by utilizing social media networks, television and internet programming. Most recently, the Kurdish Service began to offer direct-to-home satellite broadcast news programming.
As it has for the past twenty years the Voice of America Kurdish Service provides accurate, reliable news and cultural programming to Kurdish speakers all over the world.
In 1992, the Voice of America recognized a growing need to provide reliable news and information to Kurds.
