Some Safavid shahs forced Kurdish tribes to migrate to Khorasan to the east of the Safavids' lands. There they set up Kurdish emirates which defended the border against attacks from the Turkmen and Uzbek tribes. The government moved many Kurds there in the 16th century, in order to make the Kurds fight against the Uzbek people who were then attacking Iran. Abbas the Great, the shah, moved tens of thousands of Kurds from Iranian Kurdistan to the borders of Afghanistan and the land that is now Turkmenistan. Shah Abbas's government did this between 1598 and 1610. The Safavid government continued to threaten the Ottoman government's control in Kurdistan.