ISTANBUL (Reuters) - What has long been a dream for the Middle East's Kurds, an independent state, is within reach in Iraq, but Turkey's Kurds, wearied by a 30-year conflict with Ankara, see a brighter future at home, where negotiations could deliver the rights they have fought for.
At Istanbul's Kurdish Institute, where 400 students are learning Kurdish, they are riveted by events across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan, which appears to be hurtling towards independence as state forces retreat and Sunni militants, led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda offshoot, seize parts of northern Iraq.