Kurdish-Turkish conflict (1978-present) | Wikipedia audio article
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Date: 2018-11-30

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Kurdish-Turkish conflict (1978-present)

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SUMMARY
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The Kurdish–Turkish conflict[note] is an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups, which have demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds inside the Republic of Turkey. The main rebel group is the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan). Although insurgents have carried out attacks in many regions of Turkey, the insurgency is mainly in southeastern Turkey. The PKK's presence in Iraq's Kurdistan Region, from which it has also launched attacks, has resulted in the Turkish military carrying out frequent ground incursions and air and artillery strikes in the region. The conflict has cost the economy of Turkey an estimated US$300 to 450 billion, mostly military costs. It has also affected tourism in Turkey.The group was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis (near Lice) by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan. The initial reason given by the PKK for this was the oppression of Kurds in Turkey. By then, the use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned in Kurdish-inhabited areas. In an attempt to deny their existence, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991. The words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", or "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. The PKK was then formed, as part of a growing discontent over the suppression of Turkey's ethnic Kurds, in an effort to establish linguistic, cultural, and political rights for Turkey's ethnic Kurdish minority.The full-scale insurgency, however, did not begin until 15 August 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 have died, most of whom were Kurdish civilians. The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for thousands of human rights abuses. Many judgments are related to systematic executions of Kurdish civilians, torturing, forced displacements, destroyed villages, arbitrary arrests, murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists, activists and politicians.The first insurgency lasted until 1 September 1999, when the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire. The armed conflict was later resumed on 1 June 2004, when the PKK declared an end to its ceasefire. Since summer 2011, the conflict has become increasingly violent with resumption of large-scale hostilities. In 2013 the Turkish Government and the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan started talks. On 21 March 2013, Öcalan announced the "end of armed struggle" and a ceasefire with peace talks. On July 25, 2015, the PKK finally cancelled their 2013 ceasefire after a year of tension due to various events, including the Turks bombing PKK positions in Iraq, in the midst of the Kurds' battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. With the resumption of violence, hundreds of ethnic Kurdish civilians have been killed and numerous human rights violations have occurred including torture, rape and widespread destruction of property. Turkish authorities have destroyed substantial parts of many Kurdish inhabited cities including Diyarbakır, Şırnak, Mardin, Cizre, Nusaybin, and Yüksekova. Following mainly secret negotiations, a largely successful ceasefire was put in place by AKP and PKK. The ceasefire broke in summer 2015 due to political tensions.