PKK, which the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union, among others, consider a terrorist organization, has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people since its establishment in 1984. At the same time, various NATO documents and statements refer to PKK as a terrorist entity.

Subscribing to a Marxist-Leninist and ethno-separatist ideology, PKK targets the security forces as well as civilians, including women and children. Moreover, the group carries out attacks against Turkey’s tourism industry, economic infrastructure, educational institutions, health care facilities, state enterprises and private businesses.

In addition to perpetrating terror attacks, PKK engages in criminal activities like racketeering, kidnapping and arms and drug trafficking. In this regard, the terrorists regularly target schools, ambulances, medical professionals, customs officials and teachers. Moreover, PKK is known to carry out targeted assassinations, execute civilians for refusing to collaborate with terrorists and use suicide bombers in urban areas.

PKK raises funds from various sources. There are ongoing investigations and court cases in many European countries within the framework of terrorism financing. In a prominent European country, there are over 5,000 pending court cases regarding PKK’s illegal activities.

It is possible to divide the terrorist organization PKK’s history into four parts. Since its first known attack in 1984, the group operated primarily in the countryside, carrying out tactical attacks against the security forces and threatening the civilian population to survive. During this period, the organization deliberately targeted civilians in an attempt to create a power vacuum in rural areas. Major terror attacks, including the 1993 execution of 33 unarmed civilians in Başbağlar, Erzincan and the killing of 22 people, including 13 children, at a school yard in Siirt in October of the same year, attest to the group’s overall strategy at the time.

In the 2000s, PKK terrorists adopted a new strategy to turn on urban centers. During this period, too, they carried out attacks, especially bombings, against civilians. A bomb attack near the Anafartalar marketplace in Ankara on May 22, 2007, claimed nine lives and injured over 100 people. On January 3, 2008, PKK terrorists detonated a bomb outside an educational center in Diyarbakır to kill seven Turkish citizens, including six students, and injure 73 others. On July 27, 2008, two bombs exploded in Güngören, Istanbul 10 minutes apart to result in the deaths of 18 innocent people, including five children. During this period, Turkey inflicted severe damage on the terrorist group once again.

Another important milestone in Turkey’s fight against the terrorist organization PKK was the Reconciliation Process, which was unveiled in late 2012 and continued until 2015. During this period, Turkish officials held talks with Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK ringleader serving a life sentence on the Imrali Island, in an attempt to facilitate the permanent suspension of the organization’s activities following its total defeat. In this regard, Turkey took steps to ensure the group’s withdrawal from the country as a first step towards disarmament, yet PKK’s senior leadership decided to resume their armed struggle.

Against the backdrop of disarmament talks, the terrorists appear to have stockpiled weapons in provincial and county centers across southeastern Turkey. In other words, the terrorist organization PKK laid the groundwork for a new wave of terror in 2013-2015 instead of taking necessary steps to permanently suspend its activities. The first act of provocation, intended to derail the reconciliation process, was a series of simultaneous attacks in multiple provinces on October 6-7, 2014, citing the situation in Ayn al-Arab, Syria. 31 people died as a result of those terror attacks, which injured 221 civilians and 139 police officers. At the same time, the attackers targeted houses, businesses, schools, cultural centers, museums and student housing facilities to cause approximately $50 million worth of material damage.

Finally, the terrorists, in an attempt to cling to their accomplishments in Syria under the YPG pseudonym, unilaterally ended the disarmament talks by executing two police officers in their Şanlıurfa home in July 2015. Thus began the final chapter in Turkey’s fight against PKK.

In the wake of the reconciliation process’ end, the terrorist organization PKK attempted to establish so-called autonomous zones by digging trenches around city and county centers, where they had been stockpiling weapons, and held hostage the local residents of Cizre, Silopi, Sur and other places with the help of local municipalities. As a result of the security forces’ hard work and sacrifice, those areas have since been cleared of terrorists. PKK terrorists, however, resumed their deliberate attacks against civilians in 2016: A February 17, 2016 bombing in Ankara resulted in 29 deaths and 60 injuries. On March 13, a similar attack at Ankara’s Kızılay Square killed 37 civilians and injured 127 others. Finally, in December of the same year, PKK terrorists carried out an attack near Vodafone Arena, a football stadium, in Istanbul, claiming 48 victims and injuring 166 people.

During this period, Turkey, facing the dual threat of PKK and Daesh terrorism, developed a new national security concept. As part of this new strategy, the country replaced its defensive stance with a preventive approach, and opting to address cross-border threats at their source. In this regard, Turkey’s preparedness to carrying out anti-terror operations in its immediate neighborhood on a moment’s notice served as a key deterrent.

Operation Olive Branch, which kicked off in January 2017, resulted in the removal of PKK elements from Syria’s Afrin region and prevented the terror corridor from reaching the Mediterranean. In 2019, Operation Peace Spring ended the terrorists’ reign in the area between the Euphrates river and the Syria-Iraq border and enabled Syrian refugees, whom PKK/YPG had displaced in the first place, to return to their country. Turkey is closely monitoring the implementation of its agreements with the United States and the Russian Federation, which were concluded to remove the terrorist organization from the border area.

Turkey has been fighting against the terrorist organization PKK for decades. The terrorists could keep threatening innocent people due to a lack of support for Turkey’s counter-terrorism campaign from its friends and allies as well as the group’s ability to take advantage of instability and power vacuums in neighboring countries.

Until 1998, the group found a safe haven in Syria. As a result of our country’s commitment to fighting terrorism, PKK ringleader Abdullah was forced to flee the country, only to be captured within several months. (Öcalan currently serves a life sentencfe on the Imrali Island.) In the wake of the Second Gulf War, the terrorist organization PKK took advantage of the emerging power vacuum in northern Iraq to set up camp in the Qandil mountains, where it continues to train militants and plan attacks. More recently, the organization dispatched several of its senior leaders, including Ferhat Abdi Sahin, best known for his nom de guerre, General Mazloum, to Syria in order to exploit wartime conditions and establish a terror corridor on Syrian soil. The group’s efforts have been doomed to fail as a result of several cross-border counter-terrorism operations in recent years.

PKK also engages in organized crime, human trafficking and drug trafficking. On October 2009, the U.S. Treasury identified senior PKK leaders Murat Karayılan, Ali Rıza Altun and Zübeyir Aydar as important drug traffickers. Two years later, the same agency specially designated PKK founders Cemil Bayık and Duran Kalkan, together with several senior PKK leaders, as drug traffickers.

PKK-linked organizations continue to abuse democratic rights and liberties in Europe. There are ongoing investigations in multiple countries into illegal activities committed by PKK-linked organizations and persons. Moreover, there are ongoing court cases in certain European countries regarding the PKK’s activities. Annual reports by Europol establish that PKK draws revenue from private citizens, companies and criminal organizations. Today, PKK continues to systematically recruit young people in Europe and train them at camps.

There is no question about the PYD/YPG’s links to PKK. PYD/YPG was established in 2003 under the PKK terrorist organization’s control. The two organizations share the same leadership, organizational structure, strategy, tactics, military structure, propaganda tools, financial resources and training camps.

Successive AK Party governments summarized their approach to counter-terrorism as the National Unity and Fraternity Project. Accordingly, they combatted discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, religion and sectarian identification, and adhered to policy of zero tolerance to terrorism and violence. In other words, Turkey made room for rights and liberties through democracy and political representation and, at the same time, cracked down on all elements resorting to violence and putting at risk public order.