What is PKK and who is its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan? Group declares end to war against Turkey, to lay down arms

Who are the PKK and who is its jailed founder, Abdullah Öcalan? What you should know: On Monday (May 12), the Kurdish militant group PKK announced that it will cease its war against Turkey after 40 years of fighting. The PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party will disband and lay down arms. If it happens, it will be the end of a long and bloody fight for a separate nation of Kurdistan, and could lead to the release of PKK's charismaticfounder Abdullah Öcalan, who has been lodged in a Turkish jail for over three decades.

Story of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

Started as a political party, the PKK was established on 27 November 1978, in Fîs, Lice, Diyarbakır, Turkey.

Along with Abdullah Öcalan, the founders and top leaders of PKK include Murat Karayılan, Cemîl Bayik, Duran Kalkan, Besê Hozat, Nuriye Kesbir, Bahoz Erdal and Mustafa Karasu.

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The party was founded on Marxist-Leninist ideology and advocated Kurdish nationalism. Its primary aim was the establishment of an independent Kurdish state (More about Kurdistan later).

Earlier, the PKK stood for autonomy and cultural rights for Kurds - a proud people spread across the regions of present-day Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

PKK: From a political party to the terror organisation

The PKK armed and trained fighters, including a fierce female group, and carried out a series of attacks, leading to its designation as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US, and the European Union, among others.

The PKK has carried out an armed insurgency against the state of Turkey since 1984.

An estimated 40,000 deaths are attributed to this insurgency and its supression by the Turkish forces.Most of the casualties were Kurdish civilians.

PKK's regions of operation, tactics

PKK's military and political wings are active mainly in regions bordering and inside southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria.

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The group has an estimated 7,000 fighters, operating mostly out of northern Iraq’s Qandil Mountains.

The PKK was known for its asymmetrical war: guerrilla warfare, bomb explosions, ambushes, and targeted killings.

It has also been reportedly involved in arms smuggling, extortion and drug trafficking, as alleged by Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Kurdish lands are a hostile terrain, including the Qandil Mountains, which gives strategic bases for PKK's operations.

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Major PKK attacks

PKK fighters have been behind a number of major attacks in the Middle East, mostly targeting Turkish security forces, government officials, and infrastructure.

In 2016, a car bombing in Cizre killed 11 policemen and injured 78.

In October 2024, the PKK attacked a state-owned arms company near Ankara, killing five and injuring 22.

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A bombing in 2012 in Gaziantep killed eight and wounded 66. In an ambush of 2014 in Diyarbakır-Bitlis, three police officers were killed.

The group is alleged to have conducted several kidnappings, notable among them being the 2014 abduction of three Chinese engineers in Silopi. They were subsequently released.

Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of PKK

Abdullah Öcalan is the founder and ideological leader of PKK.

He has been lodged in a jail after being captured by Turkish intelligence in 1999 in Kenya.

Sentenced to life for treason, Ocelan has been kept in a high-security prison on İmralı Island.

Over the years, Ocelan has favoured a ceasefire, issuing calls for it from his jail cell, the last such being in February this year.

The PKK, under Ocalan's leadership, stood for “democratic confederalism.”

This was a model of local self-administration as opposed to statehood for the Kurdish people.

The key question after PKK's laying down of arms would be whether Turkey would release its charismatic leader, Abdullah Öcalan.

The release of Öcalan has been a key demand of PKK, for which dozens of rallies were held across various cities in the world by Kurds and Kurdish expatriates.

What is Kurdistan, and Kurdish nationalism?

Kurdistan is the name given to a region that spanseastern Turkey, northern Iraq, western Iran, and parts of Syria where the Kurds live. Their population is estimated to be 30 million.

While it has no formal statehood, Kurds have always thought of this region as their historic and cultural homeland. The Kurds are considered in some accounts as among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world.

Kurds account for nearly 20 per cent of the population of Turkey, and live mainly in the southeast of the nation.

An autonomous region has been created by the Kurds in northern Iraq, led by the Kurdistan Regional Government or KRG. President Nechirvan Barzani is the leader of KRG, whose capital is in Erbil.

KRG, along with PKK, worked for the Syrian Kurds who fought in the Syrian Civil War.