Kurdish militant group PKK to disband after four-decade insurgency against Turkey

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The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced on Monday that it will disband and disarm following its more than four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state that has resulted in the deaths of over 40,000 people at the hands of PKK militants and Turkey’s military.

The PKK has sought to create an independent Kurdish state on Turkish soil, where the Kurds make up some 20% of Turkey’s 86 million population. The U.S., the European Union and Turkey have classified the PKK as a terrorist organization.

In its statement, the PKK said, according to a Reuters report, it “has completed its historic mission,” which over the years shifted to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkey, rather than an independent state.

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Supporters cheer President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at an election rally in Ankara, Turkey, on June 5, 2015.

“The PKK struggle has broken the policy of denial and annihilation of our people and brought the Kurdish issue to a point of solving it through democratic politics,” it said on the Firat news website, which showed images of senior PKK members attending the congress in fighter fatigues.

Turkey will take necessary measures to ensure smooth progress toward a “terror-free” country after the PKK decision, said Turkey’s presidential communications director, Fahrettin Altun.

The dissolution of the PKK raises a host of questions for the Islamist government of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the pro-American Kurdish forces (YPG) in northern Syrian who helped defeat the Islamist State terrorist movement. Turkey considers the YPG an affiliate of the PKK and has repeatedly launched military strikes against Syrian Kurds. 

A woman waves a flag bearing a picture of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Abdullah Ocalan, as people gather in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on Feb. 27, 2025. (Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)

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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.”

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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.

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at benjamin.weinthal@fox.com