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1 1 (December 5, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbfzy0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 01;0i E.$~ & December 5, 2019 Turkey, the PKK, and U.S. Involvement: A Chronology Turkey's decades-long struggle with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Kurdish acronym PKK) has fostered both cooperation and contention between the United States and Turkey. Since 2015, the United States has partnered with militias that include the PKK-linked Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (Kurdish acronym YPG) against the Islamic State. Turkish operations in northern Syria against the YPG, including an incursion launched in the fall of 2019, are perhaps the most prominent recent example of how the Turkey-PKK conflict can complicate U.S. regional policy and bilateral relations with Turkey. The PKK, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, represents one among many strands of organized political and military activity in the name of Kurdish nationalism. For more information on Kurdish groups in the Middle East, see CRS In Focus IF10350, The Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran, by Jim Zanotti and Clayton Thomas. The early Turkish Republic (founded in 1923) saw several Kurdish-led rebellions and uprisings, leading the Turkish state to generally repress Kurdish ethnic identity and political aspirations. In this context, Abdullah Ocalan (born about 1947 in southeastern Turkey's Sanliurfa Province) and other Kurdish activists founded the PKK in Turkey in the late 1970s as a Marxist-Leninist organization dedicated to an independent Kurdistan. Ocalan built networks that allowed PKK militants to train with Palestinian groups in Syria and Lebanon and base operations from camps in semi-autonomous Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. 1978 Abdullah Ocalan and others establish the PKK. 1979 Ocalan arrives in Syria to lead the PKK from exile. 1980 Military coup in Turkey; general post-coup crackdown on political opposition, including Kurds. 1982 During the Iran-Iraq war, Iran persuades Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani to allow the PKK to establish camps in northern Iraq. PKK also establishes camps in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley with the support of Syria. In 1984, with Ocalan based in Syria, the PKK launched an armed insurgency in Turkey. Using guerilla tactics, the PKK primarily targeted Turkish military and other state officials in largely Kurdish-populated southeastern Turkey. The group also sought to supplant the traditional Kurdish ruling class by attacking state-aligned collaborationists. The PKK insurgency reached its height in the mid-1990s; fighting since 1984 has killed thousands of PKK fighters, Turkish security forces, and civilians. After the 1991 Gulf War, the PKK entrenched itself further in northern Iraq, prompting periodic Turkish military action. 1984 PKK begins armed insurgency in Turkey, eliciting Turkish government response and tightened security in southeastern Turkey. 1985 Turkey establishes the Village Guards, a Kurdish paramilitary group to counter the PKK. 1987 KDP leader Barzani cuts ties with the PKK; PKK continues to use camps in northern Iraq and receives permission for some limited use of Iranian territory. Turkey declares state of emergency in southeast. 1991 After the Gulf War, an Iraqi Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein is brutally suppressed by Iraqi forces, prompting mass refugee flows to Turkey and Iran; the United States and others provide relief from Turkey, establish a no-fly zone to encourage refugees' return. 1993 Fragile two-month ceasefire breaks and conflict intensifies in southeastern Turkey. 1994 U.S. Congress enacts legislation withholding military loans to Turkey until the executive branch submits a report on alleged human rights violations related to Turkey-PKK violence. 1997 Turkey lifts state of emergency in three provinces. State Department designates the PKK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Turkish forces enter northern Iraq to support Barzani against his PKK-supported Iraqi Kurdish rivals. 1998 Facing Turkish military threats and other pressure, Syrian President Hafez al Asad expels Ocalan and closes PKK camps in line with the Adana Protocol. t\ -al's apk.§,-e 2 rqN a,- n Turkish authorities captured and imprisoned Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, ending one phase of Turkey-PKK conflict. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) received formal autonomy. In 2004, the PKK restarted its insurgency, relying largely on the camps it had established in the 1980s in what had become KRG-controlled areas of northern Iraq. In response, Turkey increased its operations in Iraq and threatened a larger intervention until the United States began providing support for Turkish operations against the PKK in Iraq. 1999 After seeking asylum in a number of countries, Ocalan is captured in Kenya by Turkish special forces; after a trial he is sentenced to death. gognpo 'pop\qm ggmm g , q 's a X 11LULANJILiN,

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