Kurdish leader Oaklan told the Kurdistan Workers Party solution, he did so: Here is what to know Kurds News

The PKK Labor Party (PKK) says it is resolved more than 40 years of armed struggle against the Turkish state.

This announcement came after the Kurdistan Workers Party held its conference in northern Iraq on Friday, about two months after its imprisoned founder, Abdullah Oaklan, also known as “Appo”, He invited the group to disarm it In February.

For most of its history, the PKK was classified as a terrorist group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States. Kurdish autonomy for years, a battle that has now been announced.

This is all you need to know about why Ocalan and PKK abandoned their armed conflict.

Who is Abdullah Oaklan?

Oaklan was born to a poor Kurdish agricultural family on April 4, 1948, in Omerli, Sanliurfa, a part of the Kurdish majority of Turkiye.

He moved to Ankara to study political science at the university there, where he became active political; CVs say, by feeling the marginalization that many Kurds felt in Turki.

By the mid -seventies of the twentieth century, he was defending Kurdish nationalism and continued to find the PKK in 1978.

Six years later, the group launched a separatist rebellion against Turki under his leadership.

Akalan had an absolute judgment on the Kurdistan Workers Party and worked to clarify the competing Kurdish groups, and monopolize the struggle for Kurdish liberation, according to blood blood and belief: the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Kurdish battle for independence, by Alisa Marcus.

At that time, the Kurds were deprived of the right to speak in their language, give their children the names of the Kurdish or to show any expression of nationalism.

Despite the authoritarian rule of Uklan, his attractiveness and his position as a hero of Kurdish rights led most Kurds through Turki to love and his respect, describing him as “father”, which means uncle.

How was the armed rebellion?

violent.

More than 40,000 people died between 1984 and 2024, as thousands of Kurds fled the violence in southeast Turkish to the north cities.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ocalan led operations from neighboring Syria, which was a source of tensions between the then Assad and Turkish regime.

The PKK resorted to brutal tactics, starting in the late eighties and early 1990s. According to a report issued by the European Council for Foreign Relations since 2007, the group, during the Ocalan era, adopted foreign tourists, suicide bombing and attacked Turkish diplomatic offices in Europe.

Perhaps worse, the PKK will suppress the Kurdish civilians who have not helped the group in the guerrilla war warfare.

Has Oaklan change his views?

Ultimately, after more than a decade of arrest.

In 1998, Alalan was forced to flee Syria because of the threat of the Turkish incursion to capture it. A year later, Turkish agents arrested him on a plane in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks to the Intel he received from the United States.

He was returned to Turki and the death penalty, however his sentence was changed to life imprisonment after Turki canceled the death penalty in 2004 in an attempt to become a member of the European Union.

By 2013, Oaklan changed his position on separatism and began pressure for comprehensive Kurdish rights and greater regional independence in Turkey, saying that he no longer believes in him The effectiveness of the armed rebellion.

This radical transformation led to a shaky peace process between the PKK and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK), headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The peace process led to some freedoms for the Kurds, yet the fighting between the government and the PKK erupted in 2015, partly due to fears that the party would try to create a Kurdish share in neighboring Syria during its civil war.

At the time, many Kurds left from southern Turki to Syria to help the Kurds there fight against ISIS (ISIS).

In 2015, the AK party also formed a new alliance with the developed right -wing National Movement Party (MHP), which was strongly opposed to any peace operation involving the PKK.

What is different from this peace process?

Upon announcing its disarmament, the PKK said it had “completed its historical mission” by “breaking the policy of denial, exterminating our people and bringing the Kurdish issue to the point where its solution can occur through democratic policy.”

However, analysts argue that there are other reasons behind the decision.

The Kurdistan Workers Party and its Kurdish allies in the region are more at risk than before due to the recent developments, according to Sinan Olin, an expert in Turki and his oldest colleague in Carnegie Europe in Brussels.

“The reason is that the PKK abandoned its armed struggle related to a change in the international context,” Olgen said.

He explained that US President Donald Trump does not see that Syria is a “pivotal strategic point” for foreign policy, and it is unlikely to continue to support the Kurdish armed groups in the country as it was during the fight against ISIS.

In addition, the new government in Syria is both with Turkiye, unlike the Assad regime, which is now standing up.

This new relationship can greatly hurt the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s ability and its Syrian code, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), to work along the borders of Syria, Turkey.

Will Turkiye continue?

The political climate appears to be mature.

The main political parties, such as the AK and the opponent Republican People’s Party (CHP), has supported a new or implicit peace process.

But MHP, has long opposed any initiatives to the Kurds, was the one that created the window for a new peace process.

In April 2024, the leader of the MHP Devlet Baheli Ocalan called for giving up “terrorism” in front of the TURKIYE parliament in exchange for a possible conditional release.

“The fact that Bahsli … was somewhat incredible,” said Cinnam, who is an expert in Turki at the German Institute for International Affairs and Security (SWB.

Experts told Al -Jazeera experts that Bahiseli’s change in the heart may have to help his coalition partner, Erdogan, run and win in the upcoming national elections.

Under the constitution, Erdogan cannot run for another period unless the early elections, which need 360 out of 600 votes in Parliament, can nominate.

To add the votes of the Kurdish delegates from the Equality and Democracy Party (DeM) to the voices of the MHP-AK coalition, “(Erdogan) needs to expand the base of political support in Parliament or above the current ruling coalition,” said Carnegie Olgen.

What happens to Akalan now?

Ulgen said it is unclear whether he will be released, but his conditions in prison may improve significantly.

He said that the government prefers gradually increasing the freedoms of Ocalan, so that it can measure the reactions of his support base and the broader audience.

Many people in Turki still look at Oaklan as a “terrorist” and blame him for a struggle that took the lives of many.

“I think the government wants to test water before allowing Eucaln to liberate,” Olgen told Al -Jazeera.