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A demonstrator holds a picture of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a rally in Diyarbakir, Turkey, February 27, 2025.
Is the PKK’s war with Turkey suddenly … over?
For 40 years, the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Turkish
initials PKK, have waged war against the Turkish state in a conflict that’s left more than 40,000 dead.
On Thursday, the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, made a startling demand: The PKK should disarm and dissolve itself.
The background: Kurds, one of the world’s largest stateless ethnic groups, comprise about a fifth of Turkey’s population and are concentrated mainly in the Southeast along the Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian frontiers.
Formed in the 1980s, the Marxist-influenced PKK initially sought Kurdish secession but later moderated to greater autonomy. The PKK has attacked both military and civilian targets and is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU, and the US.
Ocalan’s call comes after talks between him, the Turkish government, and Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish political party. It is unclear what concessions, if any, the PKK will get in exchange for dissolving.
Meanwhile, across the border … Kurdish militias tied to the PKK are active in northern Syria, where they fight ISIS with US support and have carved out autonomous areas that Turkey views with extreme suspicion. Turkish troops and proxies have clashed with the Syrian Kurdish groups, which seek autonomy within the new Syria.
We’ll be watching to see what the terms of any PKK-Ankara deal are, and how it may affect the balance of power in northern Syria.
AJ McCampbell, Democrat state representative from Alabama's 71st district, calls on U.S. president Joseph R. Biden to "pick a side" on voting rights and the filibuster before a march in downtown Washington, D.C. from the African American History Museum to the White House on Wednesday, August 4, 2021.
Hard Numbers: Biden is losing Black voters, Southern Brazil gasps for air, Turkey strikes Kurdish militants, Vultures vanish from the skies of South Asia
62: A new poll finds that just 62% of Black Americans are “absolutely certain” they’ll vote in November, down 12 points since June 2020. Overall, American interest in voting dropped by four points. That’s bad news for President Joe Biden who – like all Democrats for the past half-century – has relied heavily on Black American voters at the polls. But the study, conducted by the Washington Post and IPSOS, shows Black voters, particularly younger ones, aren’t happy with his handling of the economy, criminal justice reform, or the war in Gaza.
75: At least 75 people have been killed and more than 100 reported missing after massive floods swept through the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul over the weekend, washing away roads and bridges, knocking out power and water, and causing deadly landslides. The local governor said rebuilding will require “a kind of Marshall Plan.” Trivia: You probably know a famous person from Rio Grande do Sul – supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
16: A Turkish airstrike on a camp across the border in northern Iraq reportedly killed at least 16 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, aka PKK. The PKK, which has waged a decades-long armed insurgency against the Turkish state, has long had a presence in Kurdish-controlled regions of Northern Iraq and Syria. It is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, and the EU. Allies of the PKK, however, have helped the US to fight against ISIS.
2: The Parsis, a tiny religious minority in South Asia who follow Zoroastrian burial rites in which dead bodies are left atop “towers of silence” to be picked clean by vultures, have a big problem: a vulture shortage. In Karachi, a city of 20 million, the 800 remaining Parsis have just two towers of silence left. In recent decades regional vulture populations have been decimated because of an anti-inflammatory drug in cattle that is lethal for the scavenging birds.