PKK, the Kurdish rebel group, will dissolve after a forty-year fight against Turkey

The Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) declared on Monday its decision to disband and surrender arms after waging a rebellion against the Turkish government for more than forty years. This conflict has led to the deaths of over 40,000 individuals, involving both PKK insurgents and Turkish military forces.

The PKK’s objective was to establish an autonomous Kurdish state within Turkey, considering that Kurds constitute about 20% of the country’s total population of 86 million. The United States, the European Union, and Turkey have all labeled PKK as a terrorist group.

In a recent statement, the PKK expressed, as per a report from Reuters, that it has fulfilled its historical mission. This mission evolved over time, transitioning from advocating for an independent Kurdish nation to demanding increased Kurdish rights and some degree of self-governance in southeastern Turkey.

The jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been held on an island south of Istanbul since 1999, urged in February that the PKK disband. 

Separately, Mazloum Abdi, the pro-American commander in chief of Syrian Kurdish fighters, called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which ousted the Islamic State, said Ocalan’s call did not apply to his organization. The YPG is part of the larger umbrella organization, the SDF, and is not associated with the PKK.

People leave the area after an explosion on Istanbul’s popular pedestrian Istiklal Avenue, Nov. 13, 2022. (Ismail Coskun/IHA via AP)

The U.S. and the EU are allied with the SDF and the YPG in the fight against Islamist terrorism in Syria and, in contrast to Turkey, do not see an affiliation between the SDF, YPG and the PKK.  

Fox News Digital has reported over the years on Turkey’s efforts to wipe out pro-U.S. Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF and YPG) who played a key role in the dismantlement of the Islamic State.

Syrian Democratic Forces fighters ride atop military vehicles as they celebrate victory in Raqqa, Syria, Oct. 17, 2017. (Reuters/Erik De Castro)

In December, after former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad fled to Russia and his regime collapsed, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., declared repeatedly in an address to Erdoğan in Congress, “Leave the Kurds alone.” He added, “The Kurds are America’s friends… The people most responsible for helping us, most responsible for destroying ISIS, were the Kurds.”

The Kurds are among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world, with some 30 million concentrated in an area straddling Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. A minority in all four countries, the Kurds speak their own language, with several dialects. Most are Sunni Muslims.