Türkiye, Kurds and PKK – DW – 25.10.2024

According to the news of the Kurdish news agency ANF, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for the attack on the Turkish defense company TAI in Ankara.

The report states that the “Immortal Battalion”, an autonomous unit of the PKK’s military branch, was responsible for the attack, which was carried out in response to Turkish “massacres” and other actions in Kurdish areas.

The attack followed progress towards the release of PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan on the condition that the organization be disarmed. The PKK denies any connection between this and the attack.

Who is the PKK and what are its aims?

Origins of the PKK

Social tensions between Turks and Kurds in Turkey have been a problem for decades.

As Kurds demand greater cultural and political rights from the centrally organized Turkish state, Ankara often frames such demands as a threat to national stability.

Kurds make up approximately 20 percent of Türkiye’s population. Although they live all over the country, the largest communities are concentrated in the southeast. Kurdish groups also live in neighboring countries such as Syria, Iraq and Iran.

In Iraq, Kurds have a semi-autonomous status in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, while some areas in northeastern Syria are under the control of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

There are two main actors trying to represent Kurdish interests in Turkey: the People’s Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM, the third largest party in parliament, and the PKK. The DEM Party is committed to a peaceful and political solution, whereas the Marxist-Leninist PKK is armed and its members employ guerrilla tactics.

What are the aims of the PKK?

Founded in 1978, the main aim of the PKK was to establish an independent Kurdish state. However, since 1984, the PKK has been in armed conflict with the Turkish state.

According to many political scientists, this conflict is considered a low-intensity war. Close to 40,000 civilian and military victims were claimed on both sides. PKK is classified as a terrorist organization in the USA and the EU.

The organization, which has been struggling for the autonomy and cultural rights of the Kurds in Turkey since 1995, gave up its demand for independence for the sake of the self-government system.

The PKK is believed to have 60,000 members, including active fighters, supporters and sympathizers.

The Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq form its main base of operations from which it organizes militant campaigns and logistics. Türkiye regularly bombs the positions of Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria.

Criminalization of Kurdish politics

Over the last decade, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has begun to increasingly criminalize Kurdish politics in Turkey.

Although the DEM Party officially advocates a peaceful solution and distances itself from the PKK, the DEM Party and other groups have been associated with the PKK.

Many Kurdish politicians, including the former leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, were imprisoned on terrorism charges.

While some HDP members, such as Ömer Öcalan, nephew of PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan, have family ties to the PKK, HDP claimed that such connections were individual and did not reflect its policies.

Öcalan, the founder of the PKK, has been held in prison since 1999.

In the same year, he was sentenced to death for treason. However, before the sentence was carried out, Türkiye abolished the death penalty, and in 2002 Öcalan’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

He continues to maintain his influence over the organization behind bars.

Is there peace on the horizon?

Many efforts have been made to achieve peace in the past.

Especially in the first years of AKP rule, Kurds were granted new rights, including education in their native language and the opportunity to receive education in state media broadcasting in Kurdish.

But there is lasting peace on the horizon.

Earlier this month, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, surprised everyone by shaking hands with representatives of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party in parliament. He later described this as “extremely normal for a unity party in Turkey”.

Bahçeli, seen as an important ally of Erdoğan in the ruling alliance with the AKP, appealed to Öcalan to persuade the PKK to lay down its arms on October 15. On October 22, he called on Öcalan to announce the dissolution of the PKK in the Parliament.

Öcalan responded from prison on October 24: “I have the theoretical and practical power to transform this process from one based on conflict and violence to one based on law and politics.”

What’s behind this?

According to experts, regional developments were effective in Turkey changing its course on the Kurdish issue. However, political scientist Sezin Öney does not see these steps as “a real peace initiative”. “The main aim is to minimize the threat posed by armed groups such as the PKK,” DW said. he said.

Öney also emphasizes Turkey’s current economic constraints: “Turkey has neither the political nor the economic basis to finance a new war,” he said.

Former parliamentary advisor political scientist Eren Aksoyoğlu also agrees. DW said, “Turkey sees the Israel-Hamas War as a threat, and against this backdrop, the government wants to integrate the Kurdish movement into ‘Greater Turkey’ and take all internal actors under control.”

An AKP politician who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that the geopolitical situation forces Turkey to strive for a unified domestic policy and resolve conflicts within the country.

This applies not only to the Kurdish issue but also to other domestic political tensions.

However, just one day after Bahçeli’s call, Ankara was shaken by the attack on the TAI defense factory, which led to the continuation of attacks on Kurdish regions abroad. A large part of the Turkish public sees the attack as an attempt to undermine peace efforts.

Berrak Güngör and Kayhan Ayhan contributed to this article published in German.