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PKK
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla group primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria. It was founded in Ziyaret, Lice on 27 November 1978 and was involved in asymmetric warfare in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict (with several ceasefires between 1993 and 2013–2015). Although the PKK initially sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its official platform changed to seeking autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Japan. Some analysts and organizations disagree with this designation, believing that the PKK no longer engages i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Abdullah Öcalan
Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1948 or 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish; Kurdish for "uncle"), is a founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from 1979 to 1998. He helped found the PKK in 1978, and led it into the Kurdish–Turkish conflict in 1984. For most of his leadership, he was based in Syria, which provided sanctuary to the PKK until the late 1990s. After being forced to leave Syria, Öcalan was abducted by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in Nairobi, Kenya in February 1999 and imprisoned on İmralı island in Turkey, where after a trial he was sentenced to death under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which concerns the formation of armed organizations. The sentence was commuted to aggravated life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty. From 1999 until 2009, he was the sole prisoner in İmralı prison in the Sea of Marmara, where he is still held. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Osman Öcalan
Osman Öcalan (14 August 1958 – 15 November 2021) was a Kurdish militant and ex-commander of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Biography The younger brother of Abdullah Öcalan, Osman studied at teachers' training college before joining the PKK when it was founded in 1978 and spent two years in Libya. Career with the PKK He joined the central committee in 1986, and the executive committee in the 1990s, becoming virtually second in command of the PKK. But in 1992, after signing a truce with the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties, the KDP and the PUK, he suffered disgrace and was jailed by the PKK. "In June 1993, they removed all my powers", he told ''The Middle East'' in an interview. "I was isolated in a cell for three months and interrogated for 52 days before being tried in February 1995. The trial lasted only one day. I was warned that if I continued to defend my ideas, I would be executed. If not, I would be pardoned. A lawyer? Out of the question. The trial was conducted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Cemîl Bayik
Cemîl Bayik (born 1951 in Keban, Elazığ) is one of the five founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and is among the organization's top leadership. He is a member of the 12-man leadership council of the Kurdistan Communities Union (Koma Civakên Kurdistan, KCK), a Kurdish political umbrella organisation that the PKK is part of.Leading PKK Commander Cemil Bayik Crosses into Iran Jamestown.org. Retrieved on 2012-08-20. He is also part of the three-man Executive Committee of the PKK, the leading body of the organisation, which consists of himself, acting PKK leader Murat Karayilan and |
Bahoz Erdal
Bahoz Erdal, also known as Fahman Husein ( , also spelled Fehman Hüseyin) (born 3 August 1969), in Kurdistan in Syria is a top commander in the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). He is originally from Dêrik in Syrian Kurdistan. Biography Born in 1969, Hüseyin is a Syrian Kurd who studied medicine at university – thus nicknamed 'Doctor' – in Damascus. Following PKK's leader Abdullah Öcalan's capture in 1999, he shared the leadership of the PKK with Murat Karayılan and Cemil Bayık, commanding the armed branch HPG particularly.PKK terrorist group's armed wing commander 'Bahoz Erdal' killed in northern Syria ''Daily Sabah'', 9 July 2014 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Murat Karayılan
Murat Karayılan (; born 5 June 1954), also nicknamed Cemal, is one of the co-founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). He became the PKK's acting leader after its original founder and leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was captured in 1999 by Turkish intelligence agents. In 2014, he left the PKK leader position and was assigned as the new commander-in-chief of the PKK's armed wing, the People's Defence Forces. Biography Karayılan was born on 5 June 1954,Murat Karayılan yakalandı mı? , 13 August 2011 in , , Karayılan finished his studies at a vocational college of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Şemdin Sakık
Şemdin Sakık (born 1959), also known by his ''nom de guerre'' Şemo or ''Parmaksız Zeki'' (), is a Kurdish militant commander, former senior Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member. Michael M. Gunter (2010), ''Historical Dictionary of the Kurds'', Scarecrow Press, 4 November 2009. p266 He is best known for ordering the May 24, 1993 PKK ambush. He has been imprisoned since his capture in Iraqi Kurdistan by Turkish forces in 1998, shortly after his defection to the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He was a key witness in the Ergenekon trials. Background In statements to the Ergenekon trials in 2012, he said that he became a PKK sympathizer in 1979, and joined after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état as a way of leaving the country''Today's Zaman'', 6 November 2012Secret witness reveals identity, shady ties between PKK and Ergenekon after a dispute with his father in which he shot and wounded him. His brother Sırrı Sakık was a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for the Peac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Besê Hozat
Besê Hozat (born 1978, Hozat, Tunceli; also known as Hülya Oran) is a leader in the Kurdistan Workers' Party (''Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê'', PKK) and is the co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union (''Koma Civakên Kurdistan'', KCK) alongside Cemil Bayik. She is the sixth member of the General Presidential Council, the highest authoritative body in the PKK. Early life Born in 1978 in Tunceli Province, Hozat was the seventh of nine children. She attended primary school in Tanêr and secondary school in Kayseri, where she experienced discrimination as a Kurdish Alevi. According to Hozat, Alevism and Dersimilik were viewed with scorn and marginalization. To escape this treatment, she joined radical left organizations affiliated with Abdullah Ocalan. Bese Hozat's family was a victim in the 1938 Dersim rebellion, which she called a "genocide." She shared that many members of her family were killed, including her grandfather, her father's wife and children, while her gran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mazlum DoÄŸan
Mazlum Doğan (1955 – 21 March 1982) was a journalist and a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). He was a Kurdish Alevi which was often told to attract new recruits to PKK. He was the first editor-in-chief of the PKK's propaganda newspaper '' Serxwebûn''. In 1979, he had planned to leave Turkey towards Syria but was arrested and served time in the infamous Diyarbakir No. 5 prison. Mazlum Doğan committed suicide in protest of the Turkish coup d'état and the inhumane conditions he and other prisoners were facing inside of the penitentiary. Today he is presented as a hero and a martyr by the PKK and related organisations. Early life Mazlum was raised by his mother, Kebire, and his father, Kazim Doğan, in the small town of Karakoçan, Elazığ Province of Turkey. He had three older sisters, Arife, Asiye (Serap) and Nezaket and two brothers Fevzi and Delil. Delil was killed by special operation teams on 7 October 1980. Education Doğan began his high sch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Civil Protection Units
The Civil Protection Units (, ; YPS), also known as Civil Defense Units, was a primarily Kurdish people, Kurdish rebel group and main armed force in Turkish Kurdistan. The YPS was formed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to better organize and train the youth fighters in the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement, otherwise known as the YDG-H. In 2015 the YDG-H reorganized themselves in to what is known as the YPS today. On 12 May 2025, the Kurdistan Workers' Party announced it would disband as part of a peace initiative with Turkey. History It was claimed that the YPS was originally formed on 20 December 2015 by the Kurdish rebels as a version of the YPG in Northern Kurdistan (Turkey). A youth wing of the PKK, is the YDG-H, which in 2015 reorganized itself into what is known as the YPS of today. The YPS is mainly composed of members of the former YDG-H, who have been operating since 2013. The YPS is currently training for conventional urban warfare against the Turkish gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Duran Kalkan
Duran Kalkan (born Güzelim, Tufanbeyli, Adana Province, Turkey, 1954), also known as Selahattin Abbas,Duran Kalkan: The Turk Fighting for Kurdish Irredentism jamestown.org; accessed 4 June 2017. or Selahattin Erdem is a senior commander of the (PKK). Duran Kalkan, Murat Karayılan and , t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
People's Defence Forces
The People's Defence Forces (, HPG) was the military wing of the group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). During the 7th Congress of the PKK in January 2000, the HPG replaced the former military wing of the PKK, the People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan (''Artêşa Rizgariya Gelê Kurdistan'', ARGK). The replacement was intended to demonstrate the search for a peaceful solution of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, after the capture of Abdullah Öcalan in 1999. The HPG played an active role in the peace negotiations between the Turkish Government and the PKK in 2013, as it hosted a delegation consisting of several politicians from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and members of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) and agreed to release soldiers of the Turkish army as well as a Turkish politician, who they held captive. In 2014, the HPG was involved in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Sinjar. As far as can be judged from the publications, one of the basic HPG ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ali Haydar Kaytan
Ali Haydar Kaytan (born 26 March 1952 - 18 November 2021), also known as Fuad,Cigerli, Sabri; Saout, Didier Le (2005), pp.68–69 was a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities Union. Life Ali Haydar Kaytan was born on 26 March 1952 in Nazımiye, Tunceli. He belonged to a Kurdish Alevi family that was settled in place of the Zaza Kurds who were exiled after the Dersim rebellion. He was among the early members of a group along with Abdullah Öcalan, Haki Karer, Mazlum Doğan and Cemîl Bayik which held regular ideological meetings from 1973 onwards and which would later become known as the "Kurdistan Revolutionaries". In December 1974 he was shortly detained together with Öcalan and Kalkan, before the was closed down. He was among the co-founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party which was established in November 1978. At the second party congress, which took place in Lebanon, the PKK sent him to Europe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
