The PKK’s history includes an armed campaign, changing political ideas and documented attacks on civilians. Its 2025 dissolution announcement and Turkey’s 2026 legislation require careful distinction between declarations, legal conditions and verified implementation.

Curved rows of orange seats and members in Turkey’s parliamentary chamber, with the speaker’s platform and Turkish flags at the front
Turkey’s parliamentary chamber on 23 June 2015, photographed by Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu for Voice of America, public domain. This provides institutional context; it does not show a PKK meeting or the 2026 legislative vote. [8] Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu / Voice of America · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

Origins and the armed campaign

Abdullah Öcalan and associates founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, usually known by its Kurdish initials PKK, in 1978. Its original Marxist-Leninist programme envisaged an independent Kurdish state. The organization began its armed campaign against the Turkish state in 1984. The UK Home Office’s July 2025 country-information report describes a subsequent movement toward autonomy rather than the original independence objective. [1] These dates provide an organizational chronology. Kurdish society, elected parties and the PKK require separate treatment: ethnic identity or participation in legal politics does not establish membership of an armed organization.

A changing political programme

Güllistan Yarkın’s research traces a shift from the PKK’s early socialist state-building project toward democratic confederalism, especially apparent during the 2000s. Her account examines an anti-capitalist and ecological programme emphasizing women’s emancipation, rural communes and food sovereignty. She relates this transformation to changes in the wider world and pressures within Kurdish society. [2] This is an analysis of political ideas and strategic change. The existence of a programme does not by itself demonstrate how consistently its principles were implemented or how freely different communities could participate.

Civilian harm belongs in the history

Amnesty International’s 1995 report, Turkey: A Policy of Denial, documented state torture, political killings and forced village evacuations alongside serious PKK abuses. Its account included killings of village guards and their wives and children, and the PKK’s declared policy of killing teachers and other officials. The report discusses the case of teacher Ersoy Yorulmaz. [3] A useful history identifies perpetrators and affected civilians rather than treating abuses as an incidental cost of political goals. Documentation of abuses by state forces also requires attention; it does not excuse violence against civilians by the PKK.

Legal designation has its own chronology

The UK Home Office’s list, updated on 7 July 2026, records the PKK as a proscribed organization, first proscribed in March 2001. [4] This is a dated statement about the United Kingdom’s legal designation. It should be distinguished from an assessment of the organization’s evolving political programme or an announcement about its future. For the same reason, a dissolution announcement should not be presented as automatically removing an existing designation.

What was announced in May 2025

In its contemporary analysis, the Centre for Eastern Studies recorded a PKK congress held on 5–7 May 2025 and a public announcement on 12 May that the organization would dissolve and end its armed struggle. It connected the decision to Öcalan’s call of 27 February. The analysis also noted that the practical arrangements remained unclear at that point. [5] The announcement is therefore an important dated event; establishing completion requires further evidence about implementation.

The 2026 law and verification

Turkey adopted Law 7595 on 10 August 2026 and published it on 18 August. Its provisions connect conditional postponement or suspension procedures to verified termination of the PKK/KCK’s actual existence, surrender of weapons and a National Security Council confirmation published in the Official Gazette. The law excludes specified serious offences, including intentional killing in the organizational context. It is not an unconditional release of every participant. [6] In an Anadolu Agency interview on 12 October, Vice-President Cevdet Yılmaz described field verification and council confirmation as prerequisites for the next phase and declined to give a fixed completion date. That is the government’s stated assessment at the interview date. [7]

Sources and further reading

  1. UK Home Office, Country Policy and Information Note: Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkey, version 6.0, July 2025, sections 3.1 and 7.1–7.3.
  2. Güllistan Yarkın, The Ideological Transformation of the PKK regarding the Political Economy of the Kurdish Region in Turkey, Kurdish Studies 3/1 (2015), pp. 26–46; author’s research abstract.
  3. Amnesty International, Turkey: A Policy of Denial, 8 February 1995, EUR 44/001/1995; research overview on state violations and PKK killings of civilians.
  4. UK Home Office, Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations, updated 7 July 2026, PKK entry.
  5. Zuzanna Krzyżanowska, Turkey: the PKK’s historic decision to disband, Centre for Eastern Studies, 13 May 2025; contemporary analysis.
  6. Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Law 7595 on strengthening national solidarity and social integration, adopted 10 August 2026, published 18 August 2026; especially articles 1, 3, 6 and 9.
  7. Anadolu Agency, Editors’ Desk interview with Vice-President Cevdet Yılmaz, 12 October 2026; sections on verification, National Security Council confirmation and the absence of a fixed completion date.
  8. Yıldız Yazıcıoğlu / Voice of America, Turkey’s parliamentary chamber, 23 June 2015, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.