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                                                                                                     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.

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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.


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