The Workers' Party of Kurdish (PKK) announced on Monday that it will disband and disarm its four years of rebellion to resist the Turkish state, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 people by PKK militants and Turkey's military power.
The PKK party is trying to establish an independent Kurdish state on Turkish soil, which accounts for 20% of Türkiye's 86 million population. The United States, the European Union and Türkiye classify the Workers' Kurdish Party as a terrorist organization.
The PKK said in a statement that it “fulfils its historical mission” according to a Reuters report, which over the years has turned to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkey rather than an independent state.
Kurdish groups say
Supporters cheered President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at an election rally in Ankara, Turkey on June 5, 2015.
It said on the FIRAT news website: "The struggle of the PKK has broken the policy of denial and annihilation of our people and brought the Kurdish problem to the point where it can be solved through democratic politics."
Fahrettin Altun, director of communications at the Turkish president, said Türkiye will take the necessary measures to ensure smooth progress of the PKK after the party's decision.
The dissolution of the PKK has raised many questions for the Islamic government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the pro-Kurdish forces (YPG) in northern Syria, who helped defeat the Islamic state terrorism movement. Türkiye believes that the YPG is a branch of the Workers' Kurdish Party and has repeatedly launched military strikes against the Syrian Kurds.
A woman waving a flag with a photo of Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the Workers' Party of Kurds, gathered in Kamishli, a Kurdish minority city in northeastern Syria on February 27, 2025. (Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)
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Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party, who has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999, urged the dissolution of the Workers' Party in February.
Additionally, Mazloum Abdi, the chief commander of Syria's Kurdish fighters, said that he had removed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of the Islamic State, saying that Okaran's appeal did not apply to his organization. YPG is a larger umbrella organization, part of the SDF, and has nothing to do with the PKK.
People left the area after the explosion on Istiklal Avenue, popular on November 13, 2022. (Smail Coskun/iha via AP)
The United States and the European Union have allied with the SDF and YPG in the fight against Islamic terrorism in Syria, contrary to Turkey and the affiliation between the SDF, YPG and PKK.
Over the years, Fox News Digital has reported on Türkiye's efforts to eliminate the pro-US Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF and YPG), which has played a key role in demolition of the Islamic State.
On October 17, 2017, Syrian Democratic Army fighters rode military vehicles while celebrating their victory in Raqqa, Syria. (Reuters/Eric de Castro)
Last December, after former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad fled to Russia, his regime collapsed, Senator John Kennedy (R-La). He added: “The Kurds are friends of the United States…the ones who are most responsible for helping us, the ones who are most responsible for destroying ISIS are the Kurds.”
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The Kurds are one of the largest stateless people in the world, with about 30 million regions spanning Türkiye, Iraq, Iran and Syria. The Kurds had minorities in all four countries, and they spoke their own language and provided several dialects. Most are Sunni Muslims.