Turkey’s PKK Conflict: A Visual Explainer

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Context: Turkey’s conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – recognised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU – continues in south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq. In northern Syria, Ankara and the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the People’s Protection Forces (YPG), remain pitted against each other. On the home front, the government is pursuing crackdown on the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Battleground: Between 20 October-20 November the intensity of Turkish military operations targeting PKK militants in northern Iraq as well as in rural areas of Turkey’s south east winded down further. This reflects a usual seasonal dip due to harsher winter conditions in mountainous areas where fighting takes place. On 29 October, the PKK claimed a 26 October suicide bomb attack that targeted a police station in Hatay’s Iskenderun district in which two police officers were slightly wounded. In PKK attributed attack on 4 November three state construction workers in Hakkari’s Derecik district were killed. Turkish security units, reportedly, remained active in northern Iraq's Sinjar (apprehending a PKK member responsible for logistics) where tensions between KDP and the PKK remained high.

Analysis: Prospects for non-violent ways forward look bleak amid uncertainty in Syria and the Turkish political leadership’s reliance on support from nationalists at home.