After announcing the “historic announcement” on Thursday, the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) jailed leader Abdullah Oklan called upon the terrorist group to keep his arms and dissolve himself.
This will mark the end of decades of violence between PKK and Turkish state. What should you know here?
PKK: A letter history
The PKK was established in 1978 with the target of estimating an independent, socialist-oriented Kurdish kingdom in the Middle East. Later, it softened this goal and instead called for recognition of Kurdish identity, as well as political and cultural autonomy in areas mainly settled by Kurds.
There are an estimated 30 million Kurdish around the world, which makes them the largest ethnic group without their own kingdom. Kurdish minorities mainly live in southeast Türkiye, North Iraq, Iran and Northern Syria.
As a terrorist organization, PKK launched an armed campaign against Türkiye from North Iraq in 1984. Türkiye, the European Union (EU) and the United States consider PKK as a terrorist organization. In Germany, the group has been banned since 1993.
According to German German security officials, there is a large Kurdish migrant home with about 14,500 PKK supporters.
It is estimated that armed conflict between PKK and Turkish state killed more than 40,000 individuals, many of them are citizens. In the last 10 years, most PKK fighters have retreated from Türkiye, but have started attacks on Turkish region from positions in Iraq and Syria.
Who is Abdullah Oklan?
Abdullah is known as Oklan, ie APO, found PKK and is recognized as the head of the group till date. In 1979, he fled to Syria, where he began to prepare Kurdish, for independence.
Hey established the first PKK headquarters in the Lebanese Beka Valley, then under Syrian control. After the 1980 military coup in Türkiye, several activists attended there.
In 1998, Oklan was pressurized to leave Syria and spent next months to request political asylum in many countries. Finally, in 1999, Turkish Secret Service kidnapped him in Nairobi, Kenya.
Obloched in Türkiye, Okalan was charged with treason, formation of an armed organization, and separatism, and sent for death. His death sentence was later committed to the life period. Since then, O had been a hero in solitary imprisonment in Imalli jail from the coast of Istanbul.
Even his family and lawyers have banned access to them.
Will PKK follow Oklan’s call to laying weapons?
Despite being out of public eyes on a large scale for decades, Vahp Caskun of Diyarbakir Institute for Political and Social Research still believes that Oklan is considered to be the Central Authority of PKK.
Political researcher identified four prominent actors in question of Kurdish autonomy: Military leadership of PKK located in Kandil Parvat of Iraq, a wonder of European Kurdish associations in Brussels, self-administered self-administering in Syria Rosa region, and pro-Kurd people’s equality and democracy (the) party in Turkey. In the last weeks, all four thesis actors have indicated that they would return to Oklan, deciding to end the violent struggle.
Previous peace process
The first step between the PKK and the Turkish government began in 2009. In the following years, Hakan Fidan, director of National Intelligence, interacted with the PKK representative in Norway’s capital Oslo.
The conversation failed. Many years later, after a second in peace talks after him, Os and the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) – the party’s predecessor – played the central role.
During this time, the Pro-Kurd HDP party obtained a follower and supported the peace process, while the then Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan strengthened the basic rights for the Kurdish and opposition people compared to.
In the 2015 parliamentary election, HDP gathered more than 13% of popular votes, depriving Erdogan’s Justice and Vikas Party (AKP) to its absolute majority. Erdogan ended the peace process shortly after.
Director of Diyarbakir Institute, Coscun said that the situation in Syria at that time played a role in it. During the Civil War, the Syrian government lost control of the Northern Syrian regions that fell on the local Kurdish forces formed with PKK. This was a dangerous development in the eyes of the Turkish government, which targeted the kurds with repression at the end of the second peace process, among others, the expert explained.
What role does the crisis now play in the Middle East?
“The dynamic situation in the Middle East is both a great danger and is a great opportunity for Turkey,” Koskun said, especially after the top of Bashar Assad’s rule in Syria.
The purpose of the current engagement of Türkiye is to prevent PKK and Kurdish forces from being collected with strength, the expert. There is a chance that Türkiye can become the strongest political and economic power in the region, given Iran’s current weakness. Both goals of armed conflict with PKK were explained by Coscun.
Several days ago, a party delegation arrived in the semi-lover Kurdish region of North Iraq to talk with the regional government Prime Minister Masar Barzani. Hey, also, is ready to support a pepeceful settlement.
But despite all the current peace efforts, the Turkish government has intensified its cracks on Kurdish and critics. In just one week, the state arrested 340 politicians, lawyers, human rights activists and journalists on allegations of terrorism. And after the last local elections, many elected officials belonging to the party as well as others belonging to the main opposition party CHP were removed and arrested.
This article was translated from German.
