After more than four decades of conflict with Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has announced its intention to disband and disarm. The insurgency has resulted in over 40,000 deaths, involving both PKK militants and the Turkish military.

The PKK’s initial goal was to establish an independent Kurdish state within Turkey, where Kurds constitute approximately 20% of the country’s 86 million inhabitants. The United States, the European Union, and Turkey have all designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.

The PKK stated that it “has completed its historic mission,” shifting its focus over time from seeking an independent state to advocating for greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeastern Turkey.

According to the PKK, their struggle “has broken the policy of denial and annihilation of our people and brought the Kurdish issue to a point of solving it through democratic politics.” This statement was released on the Firat news website, which featured images of senior PKK members in military attire attending a congress.

Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s presidential communications director, stated that Turkey will implement necessary measures to ensure a smooth transition toward a “terror-free” nation following the PKK’s decision.

The dissolution of the PKK presents several questions for the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the pro-American Kurdish forces in northern Syria who assisted in defeating the Islamic State. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK and has conducted repeated military operations against Syrian Kurds.

Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, who has been detained on an island south of Istanbul since 1999, urged the group to disband in February.

Separately, Mazloum Abdi, commander in chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), stated that Ocalan’s call to disband did not apply to his organization. He noted that the YPG is a part of the larger SDF umbrella and is not associated with the PKK.

The U.S. and the EU are allied with the SDF and the YPG in the fight against Islamist terrorism in Syria and, unlike Turkey, do not consider the SDF, YPG, and PKK to be affiliated.

Digital  on Turkey’s efforts to wipe out pro-U.S. Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF and YPG) who played a key role in the dismantlement of the Islamic State.

In December, after former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad fled to Russia and his regime collapsed,  in an address to Erdoğan in Congress, “Leave the Kurds alone.” He added, “The Kurds are America’s friends… The people most responsible for helping us, most responsible for destroying ISIS, were the Kurds.”

The Kurds are among the  in the world, with approximately 30 million residing primarily in a region spanning Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. As a minority in each of these countries, the Kurds have their own language, with various dialects, and are predominantly Sunni Muslims.

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