Before 2015: 70,000+ PKK members killed or captured[52][53][54][55][56] 2015–present: 39,000+ PKK and YPG members killed or captured (AA estimate)[57] Total: 70,000-109,000+ killed or captured
The main rebel group is the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)[90] (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê). Although the Kurdish-Turkish conflict has spread to many regions,[91] most of the conflict has taken place in Northern Kurdistan, which corresponds with southeastern Turkey.[92] The PKK's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan has resulted in the Turkish Armed Forces carrying out frequent ground incursions and air and artillery strikes in the region,[93][94][95] and its influence in Syrian Kurdistan has led to similar activity there. The conflict has cost the economy of Turkey an estimated $300 to 450 billion, mostly in military costs. It has also affected tourism in Turkey.[96][97][98]
A revolutionary group, the PKK was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis, Lice by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan.[99] The initial reason given by the PKK for this was the oppression of Kurds in Turkey.[100][101] At the time, the use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned in Kurdish-inhabited areas.[102] In an attempt to deny their existence, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" during the 1930s and 1940s.[102][103][104] The words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", or "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government.[105] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life until 1991.[106] Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.[107]
The PKK was formed in an effort to establish linguistic, cultural, and political rights for Turkey's Kurdish minority.[108] However, the full-scale insurgency did not begin until 15 August 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 have died, the vast majority of whom were Kurdish civilians.[109] Both sides were accused of numerous human rightsabuses during the conflict. The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for thousands of human rights abuses.[110][111] Many judgments are related to the systematic executions of Kurdish civilians,[112] torture,[113] forced displacements,[114] destroyed villages,[115][116][117]arbitrary arrests,[118] and the forced disappearance or murder of Kurdish journalists, activists and politicians.[119][120][121] Teachers who provided and students who demanded education in Kurdish language were prosecuted and sentenced for supporting terrorism of the PKK.[122] On the other hand, the PKK has faced international condemnation, mainly by Turkish allies, for using terrorist tactics, which include civilian massacres, summary executions, suicide bombers, and child soldiers, and involvement in drug trafficking.[123][124] The organization is historically to blame for the burning of schools and killing of teachers who they accused of "destroying Kurdish identity", attacks on hospitals which resulted in the death of doctors and nurses, and allegedly the kidnapping of foreign tourists for ransom.[citation needed][125][126]
In February 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya by a group of special forces personnel[127] and taken to Turkey, where he remains in prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara.[128] The first insurgency lasted until March 1993, when the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire.[129] Fighting resumed the same year.[130] In 2013, the Turkish government started talks with Öcalan. Following mainly secret negotiations, a largely successful ceasefire was put in place by both the Turkish state and the PKK. On 21 March 2013, Öcalan announced the "end of armed struggle" and a ceasefire with peace talks.[20]
The conflict resumed following the Ceylanpınar incidents, in which the PKK killed two Turkish policemen in the Suruç bombing.[131][132] With the resumption of violence, hundreds of Kurdish civilians have been killed by both sides and numerous human rights violations have occurred, including torture and widespread destruction of property.[133][134] Substantial parts of many Kurdish-majority cities including Diyarbakır, Şırnak, Mardin, Cizre, Nusaybin, and Yüksekova were destroyed in the clashes.[135]
^Marcus, Aliza (2007). Blood and belief : the PKK and the Kurdish fight for independence. New York: New York University Press. pp. 44–48. ISBN978-0-8147-5711-6. OCLC85162306. The Suleymanlar saw these leftists as a threat to the existing order, while the Kurdistan Revolutionaries viewed oppressive, landowning tribes like the Suleymanlar as much the enemy as the state itself... In Hilvan, the Suleymanlar tribe renewed their attacks on the PKK, kidnapping and killing six villagers.
^Martin van Bruinessen, "Zaza, Alevi and Dersimi as Deliberately Embraced Ethnic Identities" in '"Aslını İnkar Eden Haramzadedir!" The Debate on the Ethnic Identity of The Kurdish Alevis' in Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, Barbara Kellner-Heinkele, Anke Otter-Beaujean, Syncretistic Religious Communities in the Near East: Collected Papers of the International Symposium "Alevism in Turkey and Comparable Sycretistic Religious Communities in the Near East in the Past and Present" Berlin, 14-17 April 1995, BRILL, 1997, ISBN9789004108615, p. 13.
^Martin van Bruinessen, "Zaza, Alevi and Dersimi as Deliberately Embraced Ethnic Identities" in '"Aslını İnkar Eden Haramzadedir!" The Debate on the Ethnic Identity of The Kurdish Alevis', p. 14.
^Jenkins, Gareth (2010). "A New Front in the PKK Insurgency". International Relations and Security Network (ISN). International Relations and Security Network (ISN). Archived from the original on 20 January 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
^Saatci, Mustafa (2002). "Nation–states and ethnic boundaries: modern Turkish identity and Turkish–Kurdish conflict". Nations and Nationalism. 8 (4): 549–564. doi:10.1111/1469-8219.00065. ISSN1354-5078. S2CID144368127.
^Cite error: The named reference security was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) – Norwegian Refugee Council. "The Kurdish conflict (1984–2006)". Internal-displacement.org. Archived from the original on 31 January 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
^Brauns, Nicholas; Kiechle, Brigitte (2010). PKK, Perspektiven des Kurdischen Freiheitskampfes: Zwischen Selbstbestimmung, EU und Islam. Stuttgart: Schmetterling Verlag. p. 45. ISBN978-3896575647.
^Eder, Mine (2016). "Turkey". In Lust, Ellen (ed.). The Middle East (14 ed.). CQ Press. ISBN978-1506329307. The Turkish military responded with a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign that led to the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, most of them Turkish Kurdish civilians, and the displacement of more than three million Kurds from southeastern Turkey.
^Annual report(PDF) (Report). 2014. Archived(PDF) from the original on 16 September 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
^Case of Benzer and others v. Turkey(PDF) (Report). The European Court of Human Rights. 24 March 2014. p. 57. Archived(PDF) from the original on 3 June 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
^Turkey: Events of 2016. Human Rights Watch. 12 January 2017. Archived from the original on 29 March 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
^"Report on the human rights situation in South-East Turkey"(PDF). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. February 2017. Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2018. Some of the most extensively damaged sites are Nusaybin, Derik and Dargeçit (Mardin); Sur, Bismil and Dicle (Diyarbakır); and Cizre and Silopi (Şırnak).
Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).