The Kurdistan Workers’ Party has decided to disband. A more than 40-year-old conflict in Türkiye, which has led to over 40,000 casualties, could finally be ending.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, abbreviated as the PKK, is a militant organisation. Türkiye and several other nations, like the US and the UK, consider the PKK a terrorist group. That’s because when it was founded, the PKK fought against the Turkish state to carve out a separate nation for the Kurdish people.
The Kurds are a people without a country. This is the region where most Kurdish people live. But it is split between four countries. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Türkiye. This wasn’t supposed to be the case. In 1920, after World War 1, some of the Allies signed the Treaty of Sèvres with the Ottoman Empire. It clearly showed their intent to create an independent Kurdistan. But this treaty was never ratified. Instead, in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. It paved the way for the current borders in the region, and the lack of a Kurdish homeland.
Kurdish people make up about 20% of Türkiye’s population. But they felt that their language and culture were being subsumed by the Turkish state. Kurdish wasn't taught in schools. It wasn't allowed in print and media. The words “Kurds” and “Kurdistan” were even removed from books. It was amid this repression and forced assimilation that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party emerged. The PKK was founded in 1978.
One of the group’s founders was Abdullah Öcalan. He would go on to lead the PKK for two decades, before he was captured in 1999. Abdullah Öcalan, or Apo as he’s affectionately known, has been in prison since. There was a trial after Öcalan’s capture. The Turkish judiciary found him guilty of treason and separatism. He was initially sentenced to death, but it was changed to life imprisonment after Türkiye abolished the death penalty. Öcalan has been serving his jail sentence on İmralı island, in the Sea of Marmara. For the first 10 years, he was the only prisoner on that island.
Meanwhile, the PKK continued their militant activities. There have been periods of ceasefires over the years. And even a peace process between the PKK and the Turkish state in 2013. But the process failed, and the ceasefires never held. But this time, things could be different. Abdullah Öcalan himself called for the dissolution of the PKK. Now, it’s up to the Turkish state to take the next step towards a permanent peace.
