TÜRKİYE ORTA ASYA HABER KKUORDİNATÖRÜ

IFJ-INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF JOURNALIST Turkey, the PKK, and US Intervention: A Chronology (CIA) Türkiye's decades-long struggle with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK, Kurdish acronym) has fostered both cooperation and conflict between the United States and Turkey. Designated a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the US, the PKK represents one of many organized political and military activities organized in the name of Kurdish nationalism. Since 2015, the United States has partnered with militias, including the PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG, Kurdish acronym), against ISIS. Türkiye's military operations in northern Syria to counter the YPG and reduce its territorial control have been a complicating factor in US policy and US-Turkey relations. During a 2019 Turkish-led operation against the YPG in Syria, Congress debated sanctions against Türkiye, and the Trump Administration briefly imposed some (through Executive Order 13894, which remains in effect). Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December 2024, renewed fighting between Turkish-backed and YPG-led forces has brought this issue back to Congress' attention. The Origins of the PKK (1978-1983) The first Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923, witnessed numerous Kurdish-led rebellions and uprisings, leading the Turkish state to suppress Kurdish ethnic identity and political aspirations in general. In this context, Abdullah Öcalan (born approximately 1947 in the Şanlıurfa province of southeastern Türkiye) and other Kurdish activists founded the PKK in Türkiye in the late 1970s as a Marxist-Leninist organization dedicated to an independent Kurdistan. Öcalan established networks that enabled PKK militants to train with Palestinian groups in Syria and Lebanon and to conduct operations from camps in semi-autonomous Kurdish regions in northern Iraq. The Peace Process in Syria and the Rise of the PYD/YPG (2009-2014) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who took office in 2003 and declared his openness to greater freedoms for the expression of Kurdish identity, initiated a "peace process" that granted some rights to Turkish Kurds and raised hopes for a broader Turkey-PKK solution. The war in Syria and the rise of both ISIS (ISIS) and the PKK-affiliated YPG have added new challenges to US-Turkey relations. Erdoğan was elected president of Turkey in 2014. The Overthrow of Assad and the Intensification of Turkey-SDF/YPG Competition (2024-Present) With the overthrow of the Assad regime and the establishment of a transitional government in Syria, Turkish-backed SDF/YPG forces resumed fighting in the disputed areas of northern Syria in December 2024. Syria's de facto leader, Ahmed al-Shara, has acknowledged Kurdish rights in Syria, but SDF troops have encouraged Trump to reach an agreement with the PKK.