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Middle East|What to Know About the Turkey-P.K.K. Conflict
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-pkk.html
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The fighting has taken more than 40,000 lives over the past four decades. The group’s leader is now calling for its fighters to put down their arms.
By Ben Hubbard
Ben Hubbard covers Turkey and the surrounding region.
Feb. 27, 2025Updated 10:27 a.m. ET
For more than four decades, Turkey has been fighting an armed insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., a militant group that says it seeks greater rights for the country’s Kurdish minority.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, in both P.K.K. attacks on military and civilian targets, and Turkish military operations against the militants and the communities that harbor them. Turkey, the United States and other countries consider the group a terrorist organization.
Now, the group’s founder, Abdullah Ocalan, has called on Kurdish fighters to lay down their arms — although it remains unclear how effective his plea will be and what, if anything, the Turkish government is offering the group in exchange for ending the fighting.
Here is what to know about the P.K.K. and its conflict with Turkey.
Who are the P.K.K.?
The group launched an armed insurgency against the Turkish state in the early 1980s, originally seeking independence for the Kurds, who are believed to make up about 15 percent or more of Turkey’s population.
Starting from the mountains in eastern and southern Turkey, P.K.K. fighters attacked Turkish military bases and police stations, prompting harsh government responses. Later, the conflict spread to other parts of the country, with devastating P.K.K. bombings in Turkish cities that killed many civilians.
