The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla group primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria. It was founded in Ziyaret, Lice, on 27 November 1978 and was involved in asymmetric warfare in the Kurdistan Workers' Party insurgency (with several ceasefires between 1993 and 2013–2015). Although the PKK initially sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s, its official platform changed to seeking autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey.
The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Japan. Some analysts and organizations disagree with this designation, believing that the PKK no longer engages in organized terrorist activities or systemically targets civilians. Turkey has often characterized the demand for education in Kurdish as supporting terrorist activities by the PKK. Finland and Sweden's alleged support for the PKK is one of the points which caused Turkey to oppose Finland and Sweden's NATO accession bids.
The PKK's ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Marxism–Leninism with Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent Kurdistan. The PKK was formed as part of a growing discontent over the suppression of Turkey's Kurds, in an effort to establish linguistic, cultural, and political rights for the Kurdish minority. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. The Turkish government denied the existence of Kurds and the PKK was portrayed trying to convince Turks of being Kurds.
The PKK has been involved in armed clashes with Turkish security forces since 1979, but the full-scale insurgency did not begin until 15 August 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 people have died, most of whom being Turkish Kurdish civilians. In 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured and imprisoned. In May 2007, serving and former members of the PKK set up the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organisation of Kurdish organisations in Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian Kurdistan. In 2013, the PKK declared a ceasefire and began slowly withdrawing its fighters to Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a peace process with the Turkish state. The ceasefire broke down in July 2015. Both the PKK and the Turkish state have been accused of engaging in terror tactics and targeting civilians. The PKK has bombed city centres and recruited child soldiers, and conducted several attacks that massacred civilians. Turkey has depopulated and burned down thousands of Kurdish villages and massacred Kurdish civilians in an attempt to root out PKK militants.
On 1 March 2025, the PKK declared a ceasefire with Turkey, and on 12 May, announced plans for a total dissolution of the organisation. In August 2026 a law was passed by the Turkish parliament which would give conditional pardon for thousands of fighters in the party. It would take full effect when the National Security Council agrees that the PKK has fully disbanded and surrendered its weapons. Members convicted of intentional homicide or sentenced to life terms before 2005 would not be included.
Background
As a result of the Turkish military coup of 1971, many militants of the revolutionary left were deprived of a public appearance. Movements like the People's Liberation Army of Turkey (THKO) or the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist (TKP-ML) were cracked down upon and forbidden. Subsequently, several of the remaining political actors of the Turkish left organized away from the public in university dorms or in meetings in shared apartments. In 1972–1973, the organization's core ideological group was made up largely of students led by Abdullah Öcalan ("Apo") in Ankara who made themselves known as the "Kurdistan Revolutionaries". The new group focused on the oppressed Kurdish population of Turkish Kurdistan in a capitalist world. In 1973, several students, who later became founders of the PKK, established the student organization Ankara Democratic Association of Higher Education (ADYÖD), which would be banned the next year. Then a group around Öcalan split from the Turkish left and held extensive discussions focusing on the colonization of Kurdistan by Turkey. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. At this time, expressions of Kurdish culture, including the use of the Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names, were banned in Turkey. In an attempt to deny their separate existence from Turkish people, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991. The PKK was then formed as part of a growing discontent over the suppression of Kurds in Turkey, in an effort to establish linguistic, cultural, and political rights for Turkey's Kurdish minority.
Following several years of preparation, the Kurdistan Workers Party was established during a foundation congress on 26 and 27 November 1978 in the rural village of Fîs, Lice, Diyarbakır. On 27 November 1978, a central committee consisting of seven people was elected, with Abdullah Öcalan as its head. Other members were: Şahin Dönmez, Mazlum Doğan, Haki Karer (an ethnic Turk), Mehmet Hayri Durmuş, Mehmet Karasungur, Cemîl Bayîk. The party program Kürdistan Devrimci Yolu drew on Marxism and saw Kurdistan as a colonized entity. Initially the PKK concealed its existence and only announced their existence in a propaganda stunt when they attempted to assassinate a politician of the Justice Party, Mehmet Celal Bucak, in July 1979. Bucak was a Kurdish tribal leader accused by the PKK of exploiting peasants and collaborating with the Turkish state to oppress Kurds.
Ideology and aims
The organization originated in the early 1970s from the radical left and drew its membership from other existing leftist groups, mainly Dev-Genç. During the 1980s, the movement included and cooperated with other ethnic groups, including ethnic Turks, who were following the radical left. The PKK had attracted certain ethnic Turks since its foundation, and in the early years of the PKK, the group counted as many Turkish members as Kurdish members. The high-ranking Turks within the PKK included Duran Kalkan, Kemal Pir, and Haki Karer.
The PKK initially presented itself as part of the worldwide communist revolution. Its aims and objectives have evolved over time towards the goals of national autonomy a federation similar the one of Switzerland, Germany or the United States and democratic confederalism.
Around 1995, the PKK ostensibly changed its aim from independence to a demand for equal rights and Kurdish autonomy within the Turkish state, though all the while hardly suspending their military attacks on the Turkish state except for ceasefires in 1999–2004 and 2013–2015. In 1995, Öcalan said: "We are not insisting on a separate state under any condition. What we are calling for very openly is a state model where a people's basic economic, cultural, social, and political rights are guaranteed".
Whilst this shift in the mid-nineties has been interpreted as one from a call for independence to an autonomous republic, some scholars have concluded that the PKK still maintains independence as the ultimate goal, but through society-building rather than state-building.
The PKK has in March 2016 also vowed to overthrow the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, through the 'Peoples' United Revolutionary Movement'.
The organization has adapted the new democratic confederalist views of its arrested leader, which aim to replace the United Nations, capitalism and nation state with the democratic confederalism which is described as a system of popularly elected administrative councils, allowing local communities to exercise autonomous control over their assets while linking to other communities via a network of confederal councils. Followers of Öcalan and members of the PKK are known, after his honorary name, as Apocu (Apo-ites) under his movement, Apoculuk (Apoism). The slogan Bijî Serok Apo, which translates into Long Live leader Apo, is often chanted by his sympathizers.
Religion
While the PKK has no known Islamist or practicing religious member among its leadership, it has supported the creation of religious organizations. It has also supported Friday prayers to be in Kurdish instead of the Turkish language. Öcalan's early writings did not have a positive view of Islam, but later works had a more favorable tone, specifically regarding the revolutionary activity of Muhammad against an established order, as well as the role Islam can play in reconciliation between Kurds and Turks. The PKK was accused of having a presence in mosques in Germany to attract religious Muslim Kurds into their ranks. Öcalan had respect for Zoroastrianism and saw it as the first religion of the Kurds.
Organization
Even though the PKK had several prominent representatives in various countries such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Russia, and Europe, Abdullah Öcalan stayed the unchallenged leader of the organization. Today, though serving life imprisonment, Öcalan is still considered the honorary leader and figurehead of the organization.
Murat Karayılan led the organization from 1999 to 2013. In 2013 Cemil Bayik and Besê Hozat assumed as the first joint leadership. Cemil Bayik was one of the core leaders since its foundation. The organization appointed "Doctor Bahoz", nom de guerre of Fehman Huseyin, a Syrian Kurd, in charge of the movement's military operations signifying the long-standing solidarity among Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan.
Political and popular wing
In 1985, the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (Kurdish: Eniye Rizgariye Navata Kurdistan, ERNK) was established by the PKK as its popular front wing, with the role of both creating propaganda for the party, and as an umbrella organization for PKK organizations in different segments of the Kurdish population, such as the peasantry, workers, youth, and women. It was dissolved in 1999, after the capture of Abdullah Öcalan.
Cultural branch
In 1983, the Association of Artists (Hunerkom) was established in Germany under the lead of the music group Koma Berxwedan. Its activities spread over Kurdish community centers in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1994 the Hunerkom was renamed into the 'Kurdish Academy of Culture and Arts'. Koma Berxwedans songs, which often were about the PKK resistance, were forbidden in Turkey and had to be smuggled over the border.
Armed wing
The PKK had an armed wing, originally formed in 1984 as the Kurdistan Freedom Brigades (Kurdish: Hêzên Rizgariya Kurdistan, HRK), renamed to the People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan (Kurdish: Arteşa Rizgariya Gelî Kurdistan, ARGK) in 1986, and again renamed to the People's Defence Forces (Kurdish: Hêzên Parastina Gel, HPG) in 1999.
Women's armed wing
The Free Women's Units of Star (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Jinên Azad ên Star, YJA-STAR) was established in 2004 as the women's armed wing of the PKK, emphasizing the issue of women's liberation.
Youth wing
The Civil Protections Units (YPS) is the successor of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the youth wing of the PKK. In February 2016 the ANF news agency reported the establishment of the women's branch of the YPS, the YPS-Jin.
Training camps
The first training camps were established in 1982 in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and also in Beqaa Valley with the support of the Syrian government. In the third party congress of October 1986, the PKK established the Mahsum Korkmaz Academy in the Beqaa Valley. After Turkey pressured Syria to enforce its closure in 1992, the academy moved to Damascus. After the Iran-Iraq War and the Kurdish Civil War, the PKK moved all its camps to Northern Iraq in 1998. The PKK had also completely moved to Qandil Mountains from Beqaa Valley, under intensive pressure, after Syria expelled Öcalan and shut down all camps established in the region. The PKK was possibly inspired by other Kurdish groups who settled there earlier, such as Komala and Jund al-Islam (predecessor of Ansar al-Islam). At the time, Northern Iraq was experiencing a vacuum of control after the Gulf War-related Operation Provide Comfort. Instead of a single training camp that could be easily destroyed, the organization created many small camps. During this period the organization set up a fully functioning enclave with training camps, storage facilities, and reconnaissance and communications centers.
In 2007, the organization was reported to have camps strung out through the mountains that straddle the border between Turkey and Iraq, including in Sinaht, Haftanin, Kanimasi and Zap. The organization developed two types of camps. The mountain camps, located in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, are used as forward bases from which militants carry out attacks against Turkish military bases. The units deployed there are highly mobile and the camps have only minimal infrastructure. The other permanent camps, in the Qandil Mountains of Iraq, have more developed infrastructure—including a field hospital, electricity generators and a large proportion of the PKK's lethal and non-lethal supplies. The organization is also using the Qandil mountain camps for its political activities. It was reported in 2004 that there was another political training camp in Belgium, evidence that the organization had used training camps in Europe for political and ideological training.
Political representation
The PKK could count on support from protests and demonstrations often directed against policies of the Turkish government. The PKK also fought a turf war against other radical Islamist Kurdish and Turkish organizations in Turkey. Turkish newspapers said that the PKK effectively used the prison force to gain appeal among the population which PKK has denied.
Alleged political representation
The organization had sympathizer parties in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey since the beginning of the early 1990s. The existence of direct links between the parties and the PKK have several times been a question in Turkish politics but also in Turkish and European courts. In sequence HEP/DEP/HADEP/DEHAP/DTP and the BDP, which later changed its name to Democratic Regions Party (DBP) on 11 July 2014, as well as the HDP and then DEM have been criticized of sympathizing with the PKK, since they have refused to brand it as a terrorist group.