(1991)
The Gulf War in 1991 resulted in a quick victory for the coalition led by the United States against Saddam Hussein's Iraq after he had invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990. The Iraqi Kurdish refugee exodus following the unsuccessful Kurdish uprising encouraged by the United States after the war brought the Kurds to an international prominence they never before had had and led to the creation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that continues today.
The Gulf War also proved a major watershed for the Kurdish problem in Turkey because the KRG in northern Iraq served as a powerful inspiration for Turkey's Kurds and provided a vacuum of authority in which the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) found a new safehouse. Turkey also housed Operation Provide Comfort (OPC), which enforced the U.S. no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Michael M. Gunter.