Kurdish PKK to lay down arms and disband

The separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – outlawed in Türkiye and
across the world as a terrorist group – has announced it is to end its
40-year insurgency in which around 40,000 people have died


Majority Kurdish population
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government
Kurdish-populated city


TÜRKIYE


Ankara

TÜRKIYE
Kurdish population 20m,
15-20% of total

KRG-Turkey oil pipeline
Opened 2013

Ceyhan
Dyarbakir
SYRIA
ARMENIA
Van
Kirkuk
IRAQ
Baghdad
IRAN

PKK leader Abdullah
Ocalan in 1993 –
held in solitary
confinement since
1999 – called for
group to disband in
Feb, saying “there is no
alternative to democracy”


1978: Marxist group PKK founded
by Kurdish political science student
Abdullah Ocalan

1984: PKK takes up
arms with aim of creating
ethnic Kurdish homeland

1999: Ocalan captured and
sentenced to death, later commuted
to life imprisonment. PKK declares
ceasefire, calls for more autonomy
instead of independence

2003: Recep Tayyip Erdogan
elected Turkish prime minister, grants
Kurds cultural and language rights

2004-07: PKK ends ceasefire.
Turkish army wages offensive against
rebel hideouts in northern Iraq

2013: Ocalan announces ceasefire,
orders PKK to withdraw from Türkiye

2015: Peace process collapses as
Turkish forces attack Kurdish positions
in Syrian civil war and northern Iraq.
Violence within Turkish
cities escalates

President Erdogan
needs support of
pro-Kurdish parties to
run again in 2028 election


Source: BBC 
Pictures: Getty Images
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