PKK – History and New Beginning
PKK – History and New Beginning
About the history and the “dissolution” of one of the most significant armed movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, and what its future means for the Kurdish people’s movement.
Reminder: The red-marked words are links leading to corresponding Kritikpunkt articles.
We explicitly recommend reading our articles on Syria, which deal with developments in Syria since 2011 and can be helpful for understanding Rojava.
We explicitly thank Hogir Ar, Heinrich Val, sociologist Dilar Dirik, and our Syria correspondent Amir Schumo, who helped us write this article with quotes and expertise.
On February 27 of this year, hundreds of journalists, party cadres, and visitors gathered for a completely overcrowded press conference at the Elit World Hotel in Istanbul to hear the announced “historic appeal” of PKK leader Abdullah “Apo” Öcalan. Millions of people inside and outside of Kurdistan and Turkey, at public viewing events such as on Pariser Platz in Berlin and on their devices, eagerly awaited the “Appeal for Peace and a Democratic Society.” The statement was first read in Kurdish by Ahmet Türk and then in Turkish by Pervin Buldan. At the same time, a photo was released showing Abdullah Öcalan with his fellow prisoners and members of the DEM Party. Öcalan’s statement was recorded on video, but the Imrali delegation only received photos.
Pervin Buldan, co-chair of DEM, read the words of Öcalan, who has been imprisoned for 26 years:
“The second century of the Republic can only have a sustainable and fraternal continuity if it is crowned with democracy. There is no path for systemic pursuit and realization outside of democracy. There cannot be one. Democratic understanding is the fundamental method. The language of the era of peace and democratic society must also be developed truthfully. I assume the historical responsibility for the call for a ceasefire, which is being made in this climate created by the appeal of State Minister Mr. Bahçeli, the will of the President, and the positive response of the other political parties. Every modern society and party whose existence has not been ended by force should voluntarily hold its congresses, make decisions, and unite with the state and society. All groups should lay down their arms, and the PKK should dissolve.”
After the declaration, Sırrı Süreyya Önder quoted Öcalan’s words: “Undoubtedly, the laying down of arms and the dissolution of the PKK in practice requires democratic politics and the recognition of a legal framework.”
Important: By “democracy,” bourgeois-parliamentary democracy is not meant – for Öcalan and his followers (Apoists), “democracy” is the fundamental antithesis to the capitalist system and therefore is not to be understood in terms of liberal-parliamentary models. Rather, it is a radical, popular democracy based on socialist principles and already practiced in parts of Kurdistan – the underlying discourse is explicitly revolutionary and aims at a comprehensive societal transformation beyond nation-state borders, defines Dilar Dirik.
Applause erupts in the hall of the press conference in Istanbul – an end to the PKK’s armed struggle? “The PKK gives up,” writes the TAZ; is that true? – Warning: No, quite the opposite.
In the following, we will first look at the history of the PKK and then at the significance of the outcome of the 12th party congress.
A Short History of the PKK
On November 27, 1978, in the village of Ziyaret near Lice in the Diyarbakır province, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, “Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê” (PKK), was founded by 25 people under the leadership of Abdullah Öcalan. Öcalan assumed the position of general secretary, Cemil Bayık was elected vice secretary. Other key positions were filled by Mehmet Karasungur (military affairs), Mehmet Hayri Durmuş, Baki Karer, and Şahin Durmuş (organizational tasks). Other important early members included Duran Kalkan, Mazlum Doğan, Ali Haydar Kaytan, Mehmet Şener, Sakine Cansız, Çetin Güngör, Kesire Yıldırım, Mustafa Karasu, Süphi Karakuş, Resul Altınok, Haki Karer, Kemal Pir, and Şemdin Sakık.
All founding members had previously been active in the Turkish left, especially in Maoist-oriented groups, and had turned away from these movements due to dissatisfaction with the lack of attention to the Kurdish question. The PKK emerged from the movement of the “Kurdistan Revolutionaries” (Kürdistan Devrimcileri), which had formed around Öcalan starting in 1973 and had used that name since 1975.
The founding of the PKK marked the beginning of an organized, ideologically motivated resistance against the political and social situation of the Kurds in Turkey. The founding program, recorded in the writing “The Road of the Kurdistan Revolution,” defined the establishment of an independent state of Kurdistan as its central goal:
“Since the national contradiction is the main contradiction, it forms the determining factor for solving all other social contradictions. As long as the national contradiction remains unresolved, no other social contradiction can be solved.”
At the beginning, the PKK saw itself as a Marxist-Leninist organization whose strategy was based on guerrilla warfare, supported by workers, poor peasants, and Kurdish youth.
“The Kurdistan revolution is a part of the revolution of the world proletariat that began with the October Revolution and has been continuously strengthened by national liberation movements.” it wrote in its founding program.
The core of the analysis was the double oppression of the Kurdish population: on the one hand by the state’s repression and assimilation policies in Turkey, supported by international, particularly Western, imperialist powers; on the other hand by the backward feudal structures within Kurdish society itself. The PKK saw the national liberation struggle as a priority and argued that only after resolving the national contradiction would further social changes be possible. The social class struggle was initially subordinated to the goal of national self-determination.
At its core, then, a regular two-stage model, as also used in Vietnam, Cuba, and China.
Fanon writes in The Wretched of the Earth:
“The fight against colonialism is not the struggle of a people against exploitation by capital, but a struggle of a people against the oppression of their existence as a nation. Only when this national oppression is broken can the class struggle unfold its full effectiveness.”
Material Conditions in Kurdistan
In the 1970s, at the time of the PKK’s founding, the Kurdish regions of Turkey were marked by massive systemic disadvantage. Literacy rates in parts of the Kurdish areas remained below 30% until the mid-1970s, the average income was about one-third of the Turkish national average, and unemployment was widespread, if not the norm. The region was drastically underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure and economy, which was due in part to recurring economic crises, inefficient protectionism, and high foreign debt. Investment in education, health, and infrastructure was lacking – especially in the east and southeast of Turkey, where the Kurdish population was concentrated.
Since its founding in 1923, the Turkish Republic pursued an ethno-nationalist state ideology aimed at homogenizing the population and systematically denying the existence of a Kurdish identity. After violently suppressing numerous Kurdish uprisings between 1920 and 1938 – including the Koçgiri Rebellion (1920), the Sheikh Said Rebellion (1925), the Ararat Rebellion (1930), and the Dersim Rebellion (1937/38) – the Kurdish areas were militarized and campaigns to erode Kurdish identity were carried out:
“A secret decision by the Council of Ministers on May 4, 1937, determined that a ‘final solution’ was being pursued, as the army was to permanently neutralize those ‘who had used or were using weapons’ on the spot, completely destroy their villages, and remove their families.” Since practically every man in Dersim carried a weapon, this wording was equivalent to a general order to kill, although only five out of a total of about one hundred tribes even offered resistance to the military punitive expedition.”[1]
This included bans on the Kurdish language, culture, and identity, as well as the official designation of Kurds as “Mountain Turks.” Turkish surnames and place names were mandatory, Kurdish institutions such as madrasas (Islamic educational institutions) were closed, and numerous Kurds were deported or forcibly resettled. During the Dersim uprising, about 40,000 Kurds were killed and around 500,000 were deported.
In this context, many southern and eastern Anatolian Kurds were effectively turned into a reserve army of cheap labor: the lack of jobs, lack of prospects, and state pressure led many Kurds to migrate to the western industrial regions of Turkey, where they often worked under precarious conditions in the construction industry, factories, or as day laborers. This internal migration was formally voluntary, but in practice a result of structural hardship – a form of economic forced migration.
The founding of the PKK in 1978 thus took place during a time of political radicalization, in which the Kurdish left increasingly split from the Turkish left, as the latter failed to adequately address the specific problems of the Kurds as an overrepresented part of the Anatolian underclass:
“The founding members saw, on the one hand, a lack of willingness by the (Turkish) left to engage more deeply with the Kurdish question or even to acknowledge it at all. At the same time, the PKK also organized itself against the Kurdish elites and, in contrast to nationalist Kurdish movements, saw itself as a revolutionary Kurdish party striving to overcome capitalism and imperialism.[0]
Beginnings and Military Coup
The first years were spent by the PKK building a militant organizational structure and recruiting, particularly among youth, workers, and parts of the poor peasantry.
To strengthen their position in the region, the PKK’s first actions focused on attacking local large landowners (Aghas) and confrontations with regional Kurdish tribes that collaborated with the landlords and Turkish institutions.
After the military coup in Turkey on September 12, 1980, numerous PKK members were arrested – the party leadership withdrew to areas of Lebanon controlled by Syria to reorganize. Through contacts with other Kurdish liberation organizations, particularly the Iraqi PUK, Öcalan established connections with the Palestinian DFLP, which agreed to supply the PKK with both weapons and training.
Later, Fatah under Arafat, the PFLP, and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front also supported the PKK’s development. PKK units fought alongside the PLO during the IDF invasion of Lebanon, which is why, with the approval of Hafiz al-Assad, they were allowed to take over a camp for military and political training of the rapidly growing number of PKK units.
The military coup marked a dramatic deterioration in the situation of the Kurds in Turkey:
“To secure its order, the capitalist class state removed its democratic mask during the days of the coup and revealed its dictatorship openly: 650,000 people were taken into police custody, 1,683,000 criminal proceedings were initiated, 517 people were sentenced to death, and 300,000 were banned from their professions. Torture became routine, having contact with the wrong person or living in the wrong neighborhood was enough to be interrogated. Hundreds died at this time due to state torture. Beyond direct repression, the coup leaders relied on propagating conservative—and in Turkey’s case, explicitly Islamic—values through the state to ‘protect against leftist indoctrination and provide youth with guidance.'”[2]
The constitution adopted in 1982 under military pressure included numerous articles, paragraphs, and clauses that denied the existence of the Kurdish people, banned the Kurdish language and culture, and criminalized the publication, distribution of audio and video tapes in Kurdish or about Kurds. Organizations were banned, their leaders arrested, sentenced to long prison terms, and tortured. All democratic rights and freedoms were abolished.
Beginning of Armed Struggle
By 1982, continued training in Lebanon enabled about 300 trained and equipped guerrilla fighters to be sent to Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) in the border region with Turkey. Due to its weakening by the Iran-Iraq war and the strengthening of Iraqi Kurdish organizations, the Iraqi government at that time had de facto no control over the border region, which allowed the PKK fighters, after an agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), to establish bases in the mountainous region of Southern Kurdistan.
The dramatic situation of the Kurds in Turkey, along with dramatically growing sympathy for armed struggle, enabled the founding of the “Liberation Unit of Kurdistan” (HRK) on August 15, 1984, through which the PKK officially began its armed struggle against the Turkish state.
The HRK was renamed in 1986 to the “People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan” (ARGK) and in 2000 to the current People’s Defense Forces (HPG).
The first attacks by the HRK targeted the cities of Eruh (Dihê) in the province of Siirt and Şemdinli (Semzînan) in the province of Hakkâri, which were briefly occupied by guerrilla fighters:
“Officers’ quarters and a military guard post were fired upon with machine guns and rockets. Several soldiers and officers were killed and wounded. The guerrillas distributed leaflets in coffee houses and hung banners with slogans and pictures of fallen fighters. August 15 was a large-scale, daring, and well-coordinated double attack.” [3]
In the first years after the start of the armed struggle, the PKK was heavily preoccupied with internal problems. Numerous internal executions occurred within the organization. These internal purges were mostly justified with accusations of indiscipline, betrayal, or even personal relationships within the organization – members were especially often executed as traitors, sometimes for trivial reasons such as alleged romantic relationships between male and female guerrilla fighters – PKK founding member Cemil Bayik stated in 2015 in an interview with Deniz Yücel in Die Welt:
“Yes, there were internal executions. And the PKK has posthumously restored the honor of many victims. Do you know who was responsible for most of the executions? People who today accuse the PKK of them. But back then, they were part of the PKK. We take responsibility.”
By the end of the 1980s, the PKK had grown from a military strength of about 300 (1982) to about 20,000 armed fighters (1990). At several congresses during the 1980s, the PKK deepened its cooperation with the Iraqi Kurdish Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and various other leftist organizations based in Turkey. At the 3rd Party Congress (1986), the PKK adopted its own penal code, a general conscription, and claimed leadership over all of Kurdistan.
The decision to combat the “village guard system” (in which the Turkish state armed Kurdish paramilitaries to “protect” Kurdish provinces from the PKK) led to massacres in Kurdish villages, where women and children were caught in the crossfire of PKK fighters aiming to eliminate the Turkish “village guard” paramilitaries. These massacres in particular led to comprehensive self-criticism at the 4th Party Congress (1990), after which party discipline was to be tightened and wrongly convicted members rehabilitated – in the same interview with Deniz Yücel, Cemil Bayik states:
“None of those responsible for the actions against village guards are still with the PKK today. At the fourth party congress in 1990, we publicly apologized for it. And we propose that truth commissions like in South Africa investigate what we did and what the state did. But such proposals come only from us, not from the state.”
After a unilateral ceasefire by the PKK in 1993 to give Ankara a chance for reform approaches, the PKK expanded its military tactics to respond to the growing violence and intransigence of Turkish counterattacks. On June 30, 1996, in Tunceli (Dersim), the PKK carried out its first suicide attack against Turkish security forces.
At the same time, the PKK changed its formerly socialist-secular rhetoric to more strongly engage with Islamic beliefs in order to gain greater support among the Kurdish rural population. In addition, the organization abandoned its earlier strategy of attacking Kurdish and Turkish state collaborators and instead focused exclusively on attacks against state and military targets.
KADEK and KONTRA-GEL
Between 1999 and 2002, the PKK underwent a fundamental strategic shift from military to political confrontation.
The PKK’s 6th Congress took place parallel to the (in violation of international law) arrest of Öcalan in Kenya, between January 19 and February 16, 1999, in the Kandil Mountains. In protest against Öcalan’s abduction, further suicide attacks and mass demonstrations were initially planned, but these resolutions were not implemented due to a later strategic shift and the election of new leadership.
Despite his imprisonment, Öcalan remained the main strategist and ideological leader of the PKK. His ideas and instructions significantly shaped the orientation and strategy of the organization, and the PKK leadership continued to follow his guidance.
At the 7th Congress in January 2000, the political shift in strategy was officially decided: From then on, the Kurdish question was to be resolved within the borders of Turkey and by civil means. Goals included, among others, the recognition of Kurdish identity (see above), an end to repression against Kurds in Turkey, the abolition of the death penalty, and the release of Öcalan.
After Abdullah Öcalan’s imprisonment in 1999 and the subsequent unilateral ceasefire, the majority of the PKK guerrillas withdrew from Turkey and established the so-called Medya Defense Zones in Southern Kurdistan. During the phase from 1999 to 2002, there was a significant decline in fighting. The PKK was able to consolidate its military presence in the retreat areas in Southern Kurdistan and reorganize its structures. The organization remained capable of carrying out targeted attacks and raids on Turkish military posts. During this period, the PKK managed to maintain its guerrilla units and secure control over parts of the border region between Southern Kurdistan and Turkey despite international pressure and military setbacks.
Despite the PKK’s withdrawal and declared ceasefire, Turkey continued its military operations against the PKK. Cross-border attacks on PKK positions in the Medya Defense Zones in Southern Kurdistan occurred repeatedly. These attacks took place even though the PKK had ceased its offensive operations and adopted a defensive stance — the Turkish armed forces conducted bombings, artillery shelling, and occasional ground troop operations against the PKK’s infrastructure and supply routes. As a result, the region remained burdened by war despite the PKK’s peace initiatives, and the hope for de-escalation was undermined by Turkey’s continued military actions.
In practice, the restructuring of KADEK, or KONGRA-GEL, occurred in the following year through increased civil society engagement in the form of involving various societal forces (including non-Kurdish minorities, representatives of the Kurdish diaspora) — at its core, the restructuring of the PKK aimed to provoke democratic reforms, the recognition of Kurdish identity, and the legalization of Kurdish organizations and structures by Turkey: Military capacities remained intact but were explicitly not used in an offensive context;
“Our units will not participate in offensive operations. But as long as the Turkish state takes no political steps, we see ourselves compelled to maintain the existence of our forces as a guarantee for our people,” the PKK wrote.
Repression unchanged
Despite the unilateral ceasefire and serious peace initiatives by the PKK (or KADEK), the Turkish state expanded its repression against the Kurds. The state of emergency (OHAL) remained in place in the southeastern and eastern Anatolian provinces until November 2002 and served as an instrument to massively restrict fundamental rights — curfews, arbitrary controls, media censorship, and special administrations were part of everyday life and enabled the state to systematically suppress any oppositional or Kurdish self-organization.
The security forces, supported by paramilitary village guards, acted with drastic severity against suspected “PKK supporters” and their environment: raids, arrests, torture, and military operations — including beyond Turkey’s borders in Southern Kurdistan — were part of the state’s strategy to crush any form of Kurdish self-determination. The Kurdish population was subjected not only to military violence but also to systematic discrimination and assimilation pressure — the use of the Kurdish language remained largely banned in public spaces, and cultural activities were criminalized or suppressed.
Political repression was also evident in the persecution of Kurdish parties: The largest legal Kurdish party, HADEP, was banned in 2003, further restricting the political participation of Kurds.
By 2003, the Turkish state had destroyed between 3,500 and 4,000 Kurdish villages — protests against this policy were regularly met with violence; in prisons, hunger strikes and self-immolations occurred as desperate protests against inhumane detention conditions and political oppression:
“Kurds who filed complaints about their burned-down homes often disappeared, said Selhattin Demirtaş, chairman of the Human Rights Association of Diyarbakir — sometimes even the lawyers themselves.” [3.5]
Democratic Confederalism
The establishment of autonomy in (South) Kurdistan in northern Iraq in 2005 led to an ideological reorientation of the PKK’s guiding principle toward “Democratic Confederalism” (DF): Democratic Federalism is, in name, the counterpart to Lenin’s Democratic Centralism; instead of centralized decision-making within the vanguard party, in which the social classes are reflected, power within a society should be decentralized and exercised at various levels (local, regional, national) through grassroots democracy and (for the most part) autonomously.
The nation-state is understood here not only as a historical result of capitalism, in which property can be reproduced most efficiently, but also as its political arm, which reinforces hierarchies through institutionalized violence and deepens social conflict.
The state does not lend itself to the liberation of the Kurds, because in the DF’s analysis, the state cannot exist without exploitation (whether capitalist, feudal, or state-socialist). Instead of the transitional state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat on the path to social emancipation, the DF seeks to achieve the organization of society through federated councils and communes in which decisions are made locally and participatively, without any transitional form.
This council-oriented form shows clear parallels to early Marxist council concepts, but fundamentally questions centralization in the form of central planning and authority. In the sense of democratizing society, the DF views the state as inherently contradictory to democracy itself, as it possesses its own interests.
The theoretical development of Democratic Confederalism was significantly shaped by Abdullah Öcalan starting in 2004 in his prison writings, particularly in “Beyond State, Power, and Violence.” The PKK and its circles emphasize that Democratic Confederalism is based on the ideas of Murray Bookchin, especially his concept of libertarian municipalism.
In practice, in areas influenced by the PKK, councils, communes, women’s councils, and youth councils are formed, organized along grassroots democratic lines. This model has played a particularly important role in Rojava (see below) in creating multiethnic, inclusive, and grassroots democratic structures, and is considered one of the most advanced implementations of democratic self-governance in history.
In the DF’s analysis, women have a special role – their position as “a sexual object and commodity” forces them into a unique triple bondage in capitalist society. The DF recognizes the subjugation of women alongside nationalism and the instrumentalization of religion as vital for the survival of the state.
It explicitly understands the capitalist mode of production as a destroyer of the ecological and social foundations of life, which not only extracts surplus value from labor power but consciously and deliberately commodifies nature in order to survive – thus, the demand for an ecological restructuring of the political economy is an integral part of Democratic Confederalism.
While Marxism-Leninism is based on universal (scientific) principles, the DF emphasizes the need to reflect regional, ethnic, and cultural specificities and integrate them into political structures – conflicts between groups are not resolved through central decisions, but through cooperation to prevent escalation; this is particularly important in multiethnic contexts, as state-led homogenization processes often lead to violence and marginalization.
Regarding the respective groups, the DF not only allows the free expression of religious, cultural, and ethnic identities, but also the free decision on how individual councils decide to govern themselves; “neither nation-state, republic, nor democracy.”
We do not want to criticize Democratic Confederalism here, because we do not believe that this article provides the right context for a detailed critique of the DF – in short: the DF is often a correct, progressive vision of society, which contains some contradictory ideas about the state and therefore carries the risk of experiencing similar fates to anarchist projects in the past.
The PKK as a party is nevertheless organized according to democratic centralism; a fact derived from the fundamental insight into the necessity of centralization in times of crisis.
Rojava, Western Kurdistan
For a detailed explanation of Rojava, we recommend our series on Syria; “Syria, and Everything Revolves Around Rojava”.
In the course of the ideological reorientation of the Kurdish movement around Abdullah Öcalan, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) was founded in Syria in 2003.
The founding was carried out by politically experienced (including former) PKK cadres who returned from exile – among other places from the Qandil region. From the beginning, the PYD saw itself as part of a transnational Kurdish liberation movement, ideologically aligned with Öcalan’s concept of Democratic Confederalism, and sharing core beliefs with the PKK, but operating independently within the Syrian context.
Through the return of well-trained activists, the establishment of local structures, and informal networks, the PYD quickly succeeded in establishing itself as a significant political force among Syrian Kurds.
In contrast to other Kurdish parties, which were often dominated by exile structures and had little social foundation, the PYD established an independent organizational presence in Syria early on – however, like almost all Kurdish parties, it lacked official recognition by the Syrian Baath regime, which had pursued a repressive policy against Kurdish identity for decades.
After a phase of limited public activity starting in 2005, the PYD gained influence primarily through its social embeddedness and emphasis on democratic self-organization – the Syrian government’s political opening towards Turkey from 2009 increased pressure on oppositional Kurdish groups, but the PYD succeeded in mobilizing broad support through continuous grassroots work in cities like Kobanê and Efrîn.
With the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and the resulting power vacuum in Kurdish-inhabited areas, the PYD began massively expanding its structures; in many regions, it gradually took control of public institutions and organized local self-government councils. Open military conflict with the Assad regime was initially avoided, though there were instances of cooperation as well as tensions.
To protect these structures, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) were established, which quickly developed into the most important Kurdish defense force in northern Syria. Some of the militarily experienced cadres came from the Kurdish movement in other countries, particularly from Turkey and Iraq, while many other fighters came from local communities.
The YPG was supplemented in 2013 by the establishment of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), which played a central role both militarily and symbolically in building an egalitarian society – ideologically, the PYD referred to Öcalan’s vision of a grassroots democratic, gender-just, and ecologically oriented polity, which it began implementing in practice from 2012 in the self-governed regions of northern Syria (Rojava).
From 2015, the PYD became part of the coalition structure of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which united Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, and other local forces under one umbrella. With international support, the SDF developed into the most important military force in the fight against the (so-called) Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
With the rise of IS in the Syrian-Iraqi region from mid-2014, the PKK also became increasingly involved in the fight against jihadist militias: it was initially active in Syria, but from August 2014 also extended its operations to southern Kurdistan. A significant moment was the support during the escape of tens of thousands of Yazidis who were encircled by IS in the Sinjar Mountains and facing genocide. The evacuation and military protection by fighters of the PKK and YPG enabled many to flee and was internationally perceived as a humanitarian intervention.
A turning point came with the siege of the western Kurdish city of Kobanê by IS in September 2014; in a widely supported defense campaign, not only the PYD mobilized, but also fighters from the PKK, leading to international expressions of solidarity – the Turkish government refused open support for Kobanê and blocked cross-border aid for the local self-defense forces for weeks. In this context, various observers and organizations expressed the suspicion that Turkey at least indirectly tolerated or allowed jihadist groups freedom of movement in Syria – particularly in the fight against Kurdish forces.
This suspicion was confirmed at the latest with revelations about the massive financial support from Turkey for the Islamist al-Nusra Front, which now governs Syria.
The events in Kobanê triggered massive protests in Turkey, especially in Kurdish-inhabited regions. Protesters demanded stronger government action against IS and an end to the blockade policy toward Rojava. Security forces responded with deadly violence in some cases – at least 31 people were killed during the protests.
On October 14, 2014, the Turkish air force bombed PKK positions in southern Kurdistan for the first time in a long time. At the same time, Ankara tightened restrictions on the movement of Kurdish fighters at the Syrian-Turkish border, further escalating tensions and effectively ending the previously ongoing peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK.
Escalation and Weakening
After the peace process failed in summer 2015, the Turkish government under President Erdoğan returned with brutal consistency to military confrontation against the Kurdish liberation movement.
The large-scale offensives (!) against the PKK in southeastern Turkey and in the Qandil Mountains of southern Kurdistan not only marked the end of all dialogue attempts, but also the beginning of a new phase of systematic repression.
Cities such as Cizîr, Nusaybin, and Şırnak were virtually besieged, entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble, civilians killed or displaced – at the same time, the Turkish military intensified air and ground operations in southern Kurdistan, destroyed PKK retreat areas and supply routes, and began to permanently establish military bases in the region – without the consent of the Iraqi government, in violation of international law, and with no regard for civilian casualties; hundreds of Kurdish civilians lost their lives to Turkish offensives in southern Kurdistan.
In this context, Ankara also began to treat the political arm of the Kurdish movement in Syria – the PYD and the People’s Defense Units YPG/J – as direct enemies – although the self-administration in Rojava received international recognition for its fight against IS and built grassroots democratic, feminist, and multiethnic structures, the Turkish government declared them a “terrorist organization” and used this as justification for a series of illegal invasions under international law.
With Operation “Euphrates Shield” in 2016, Turkish troops entered Syria for the first time – not to fight IS, but to cut off the Kurdish cantons of Kobanê and Efrîn from each other and prevent a contiguous Kurdish autonomous zone. This was followed by Operation “Olive Branch” in 2018, during which Efrîn, one of the most stable and peaceful regions of Rojava, was occupied with massive artillery, airstrikes, and jihadist auxiliaries – over 150,000 people were displaced from their homes.
It’s nothing new that the PKK strives for peace with Turkey;
“However, previous attempts have failed. Öcalan already spoke of democratic paths in the year 2000, but at that time the framework conditions were not given. In addition, there is now a power vacuum (due to the weakening of Iran and state formation in Syria) – this must be used,” says the Kurdish Community Center SG to Kritikpunkt.
And it’s true; since the beginning of the PKK’s armed struggle, it has launched nine unilateral ceasefires and peace initiatives, including the extensive withdrawal of the PKK from Turkey between 1998 and 2004 – also the unilateral ceasefire of 1993, the withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkey in 1999 after Öcalan’s imprisonment, the Oslo peace talks of 2008–2011, and the “peace process” of 2013–2015. During this time, Öcalan was recognized as a negotiator, and there were official talks between representatives of the Turkish government and the PKK.
Each of these peace initiatives, viewed soberly, was linked to concrete political demands; including the social and political equality of Kurds in Turkey, including the recognition of Kurdish as a national language and the amendment of the constitutional article that defines all citizens as “Turks” – the PKK’s demands always included fundamental political and cultural rights for the Kurdish population, including the release of political prisoners, the abolition of discriminatory laws, and the constitutional recognition of Kurdish identity.
Every failure of political talks between Ankara and the PKK was followed by bombings, massive attacks, and waves of arrests – for example, after the collapse of the peace process in 2015, the failure of which “brought an offensive against the PKK and (airstrikes on) the Metîna, Avaşîn, and Zap regions”[7]. Since then, the armed conflict has flared up again with great intensity, and hopes for a political solution have remained unfulfilled.
When asked why the PKK’s decision is coming just now, Hogir Ar, a political analyst and war correspondent who grew up in Bakur (Northern Kurdistan), tells us:
“The PKK is not just an organization; it is the historical memory of Kurdish resistance. But every historical actor must at some point break through its own shell. The current geopolitical conditions – the stubborn inflexibility of the fascist, genocidal Turkish state, the imperialist redistribution war in the region, and the exacerbation of the global systemic crisis – now require a model of popular movement beyond the previous organizational form. The movement continues to develop by constantly overcoming itself. This is not the end of the PKK, but rather a step to extend its historical mission to a broader social level.”
The PKK also knows strategic changes; with KADEK and KONGRA-GEL, it already attempted a stronger civil society involvement in the early 2000s – thus, this disarmament is also not the end of the PKK – quite the opposite.
With the renaming to KADEK (2002) and later KONGRA-GEL (2003, see above), as well as the official declaration of the end of the armed struggle and the emphasis on political and social work, the PKK adapted to the changed conditions in the Middle East and international pressure; it increasingly focused on grassroots democratic structures, the promotion of women’s rights, and the implementation of Democratic Confederalism, especially in the areas it influenced, such as Rojava.
The PKK developed from a classic guerrilla organization into a multi-layered movement with political, social, and military arms. The new structures and ideological orientation were reflected in the close cooperation with other civil society actors, women’s and youth movements, as well as in the establishment of council structures.
To our vaguely formulated question of whether the decision to end the armed struggle is now situationally the right decision for the Kurdish movement, Hogir answers us:
“As Öcalan said: ‘Whoever does not overcome himself cannot transform the people.’ It is not about an organizational name, but about the concrete realization of democratic communalism in society. The Apoist perspective is today being newly formed through the direct subjectivity of the peoples, women, and youth. In this respect, the decision is both ideologically and historically consistent.” The PKK today is fundamentally different from the PKK in the 1990s, even the 2000s: “In Kurdistan, the PKK has long been more than a name – it is a collective memory, a culture of resistance. Renaming does not mean abandoning the essence. The military occupation by Turkey in Southern and Western Kurdistan, the repression in Bakur, and the attacks on Eastern Kurdistan make it clear: as long as the Turkish state focuses on annihilation instead of a solution, armed resistance remains legitimate. The principles of self-defense are essential for oppressed peoples to survive. This step does not mean defeat, but opens a new stage of ideological and social struggle.”
This is essential to understand: In the decades before, according to the PKK’s historiography, many Kurds were ashamed of their origin and were in the process of forgetting their own culture and language. The first shot on August 15th was therefore not only directed against the oppression of the Kurds, but also against colonial rule and the erasure of Kurdish culture:
“The PKK was not just a military group or political party. It was a beacon that supported the Kurdish people everywhere in Kurdistan – militarily, culturally, medially, politically, and diplomatically,” says our Syria correspondent Amir Schumo.
Joost Jongerden and Ahmet Hamdi Akkaya characterize the history of the PKK in their writing “Born from the Left: The Emergence of the PKK” in four phases: 1973-1977 as the phase of ideological group formation, 1977-1979 as the phase of party building, 1979-1984 as the phase of preparation and organization of the guerrilla struggle, and beginning in 1984, the phase of the long-lasting people’s war – now it is probably time to mark a new phase; the phase of Democratic Confederalism.
The development of political transformation and civil society orientation can be emphasized at the latest in 2002 with the founding of KADEK, which is characterized by a gradual departure from the classic national liberation struggle with territorial claims – instead, the concept of Democratic Confederalism (see above) developed by Öcalan increasingly moved into focus, which focuses on self-administration, grassroots democratic structures, gender equality, and ecological liberation.
In this context, diverse civil society structures, council organizations, and alternative institutions emerged, particularly in Rojava, which function as a practical implementation of this new social model – in parallel, the PKK intensified efforts towards legalization and political participation, for example through participation in elections via the HDP and its repressively banned predecessor parties, and the movement’s discourse increasingly gained international attention, not least through the role of the YPG/J and PKK in the fight against ISIS.
The PKK is currently undergoing a strategic shift: the armed struggle as the primary means is increasingly being replaced by a politically and socially oriented transformation process, which, however, continues to be based on the principle of self-defense.
This self-defense is not understood by the movement solely in military terms, but also includes the collective ability to organize a self-determined social life. In view of the ongoing reality of war in the Middle East, particularly driven by the Turkish state, a complete demobilization of defense structures is considered unrealistic from the movement’s perspective, writes sociologist Dilar Dirik.
The polemic that the PKK, with its call to lay down arms, would “give up” is nothing more than that – polemic:
“There were also clear words from Murat Karayılan regarding the final disarmament: ‘The existing laws are laws of enmity – they deny the Kurdish people. We need legal and legislative changes to realize disarmament. Without a legal framework and a new political mentality, real disarmament is not feasible.’ Besê Hozat, a member of the KCK (Union of Communities in Kurdistan), described this new step by the PKK as a ‘turn towards a political, socially anchored strategy’ that follows not a ‘tactical calculation, but a profound philosophical and organizational reorientation’,” reports our comrade Val.
The idea that the PKK would disarm without permanent, mutual agreements being reached between the Kurdish movement and the Turkish state is therefore wrong and detached from reality:
“As defense units, we believe that disarmament or the surrender of weapons should only take place when a lasting mutual agreement has been reached. It can only take place when the legal and constitutional basis is guaranteed. We are discontinuing armed struggle as a strategic style. But the organization of our defense must continue. This is a basic prerequisite” – according to the representatives of the 12th Congress of the PKK.
At the same time, state and media actors of counter-insurgency are trying to portray this paradigm shift as the end of a revolutionary movement.
In doing so, this discourse fails to recognize that the PKK has always been open to peaceful solutions and is now rather initiating a new phase of its international socialist project. This phase is understood not only as a peace initiative for Kurdistan and Turkey, but as part of a global struggle against the systemic causes of war, exploitation, and ecological destruction.
The Apoist movement reinterprets its role in the current historical juncture of the Middle East and reaffirms its long-term socialist goal – from the perspective of solidary actors, this change is not understood as a retreat, but as a strategic further development of a resistant project that opposes the global capitalist order with an alternative vision:
“The Apoist perspective is being reformed today through the direct subjectivity of the peoples, women and youth. In this respect, the decision is both ideologically and historically coherent.” (Hogir)
Influence on Rojava
After the dissolution declaration, our first thought was what impact the restructuring of the PKK will have on Rojava.
Rojava, which is currently in a changing situation itself due to the seizure of power by the Islamist HTS in Syria, had in the past been able to count on the support of PKK fighters in defending against ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front (which now rules Syria).
“Mazloum Abdi, the General of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said Öcalan’s decision was “to be welcomed.” It could initiate a new phase of politics and peace in the region. He hopes that “all affected parties will take important steps and provide the necessary support,” reports Schumo.
Turkey is essentially responsible for the establishment of the Islamist rule in Syria and has, among other things, already begun to exert increased pressure on the Kurdish self-administration of Rojava with the appeals of the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan that the YPG-dominated SDF should be subordinated to the Syrian central army. The upcoming liberalization of the Syrian economy will undoubtedly increase pressure on Rojava to open up to foreign capital – a development that, for the purpose of profit maximization, could, if necessary, be accompanied by coalition offensives against Rojava.
On the other hand, as our comrade Val notes, until “now the accusation that Rojava’s defense forces were an offshoot of the PKK was one of the main justifications of the Turkish state for ongoing air strikes against Rojava. If the PKK now ceases its activities in this form, it could also be more difficult for the Turkish state to legitimize the war against Rojava.”
We leave the conclusion to our Syria correspondent Amir Schumo:
“Many are trying to distract public opinion with rumors. They claim that the SDF will dissolve or cease to exist after this decision by the PKK. The military impact in Syria/Rojava will be limited. The SDF are a purely Syrian affair, linked to Syria’s internal dynamics. The PKK’s decision could be positive. Turkey could then stop seeing the SDF as an extension of the PKK. This could reduce the threats of an invasion or military escalation against Rojava/SDF.
The Kurds in Rojava want a comprehensive solution for all of Syria. This provides for decentralization or federalism. In doing so, they take into account the interests of all regions, such as the coast, the south and the Christians in the center.”
[1] https://www.aga-online.org/literatur-und-links/texte/dersim/
[0] https://www.akweb.de/ausgaben/706/kurdistan-die-geschichte-des-demokratischen-konfoerderalismus/
[2] https://kommunist-innen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/BDK_Von_der_Kolonialisierung_Kurdistans_zum_ersten_Schuss_der_PKK.pdf
[3] https://kommunist-innen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/BDK_Von_der_Kolonialisierung_Kurdistans_zum_ersten_Schuss_der_PKK.pdf
[3.5] https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/world/kurds-are-finally-heard-turkey-burned-our-villages.html
[4] http://www.freedom-for-ocalan.com/deutsch/hintergrund/dokumente/hg_020416_1.htm
[5] https://docs.un.org/S/2020/774
[6] https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/46/55 (94)
[7] https://www.amnesty.de/tuerkei-irak-kurdische-milizen-drohnenkrieg