The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey,[26] the United States,[27] the European Union,[28] and some other countries;[29][30] however, the labeling of the PKK as a terrorist organization is controversial to some analysts and organizations,[31] who believe that the PKK no longer engages in organized terrorist activities or systemically targets civilians.[32][33][34][35][36][37] Turkey has often characterized the demand for education in Kurdish as supporting terrorist activities by the PKK.[38][39][40] Both in 2008 and 2018 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the PKK was classified as a terror organization without due process.[41][42] Nevertheless, the EU has maintained the designation.[43]
The PKK's ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Marxism–Leninism with Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent Kurdistan.[44] 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.[45] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life.[46] Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.[47] The Turkish government denied the existence of Kurds and the PKK was portrayed trying to convince Turks of being Kurds.[48]
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 were Kurdish civilians.[49][50] In 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured and imprisoned.[51] 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.[52] 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,[53][54][55], while Turkey has depopulated and burned down thousands of Kurdish villages and massacred Kurdish civilians in an attempt to root out PKK militants.[56][57][58][59][60]
^"Kurdistan Workers' Party". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 September 2020. Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) ... militant Kurdish nationalist organization ...
^"Handbuch Extremismusprävention". Federal Criminal Office (in German). 10 July 2020. p. 159. Archived from the original on 3 October 2020. Retrieved 7 September 2020. ... der inzwischen stärker durch kurdischen Nationalismus geprägten PKK. [... the PKK, which is now more strongly influenced by Kurdish nationalism.]
^"Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)". Counter Extremism Project. Retrieved 15 May 2021. In 2003, Öcalan reformulated the ideological basis of the PKK. Inspired by eco-anarchists Murray Bookchin and Janet Beihl, he advocated for a new anti-nationalist approach he referred to as 'democratic confederalism.'
^Michael, Gasper (2019). Lust, Ellen (ed.). The Middle East. CQ Press. p. 37. ISBN978-1544358215. The Turkish military responded with a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign that led to the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, most of them Turkish Kurdish civilians, and the displacement of more than three million Kurds from southeastern Turkey
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