The world’s longest-running armed insurgency has come to an abrupt end.
Some four decades after orchestrating its first attack against Turkish government targets, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has decided to disband and disarm, it was announced earlier this month. The decision marks a turning point not only for Turkey, but for the entire Middle East.
Since its founding in the late 1970s by the now-jailed Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK was motivated primarily by the goal of establishing an independent Kurdish state, while also seeking to secure political rights for the Kurdish minority in Turkey. But several factors, both domestic and international, have apparently convinced its leaders to abandon violence.
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