June 26, 2025: On May 12th, the Kurdistan Workers Party/PKK disbanded. PKK leaders deliberated during their recent 12th Congress and decided to disarm and disband. The PKK began an armed campaign against the Turkish government in 1984. That left over 40,000 dead along with enormous economic damage. The PKK held their 12th Congress at the behest of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The PKK decision makes it possible for Turkey to increase economic development in the southeast.

Back in 2023 the Turkish government mounted a nationwide campaign against the PKK, in the wake of a PKK bombing in the capital Ankara. The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey and one of the largest ethnic groups in Europe without a country of their own. Most of the Kurds are in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. Kurdish efforts to establish a Kurdish state turned violent a century ago but were suppressed, often violently, in Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Currently there are nearly 40 million Kurds in these three countries who have been unable to unite politically. This persistent lack of unity prevented Kurdish nationalism from becoming much more than a source of violence against and among Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Iran. This led to the formation of the leftist, originally communist, PKK in the 1980s. Never very large, with at most 6,000 active members, PKK was active mainly in Turkey and Iraq. PKK violence led to the destruction of peaceful Kurdish political parties in Turkey. The Turkish response to PKK violence was directed at all Turkish Kurds, who are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, comprising about 15 percent of the population. The PKK and suppression activities contributed to the dispersal of the Turkish Kurds throughout Turkey. Many Kurds assimilated, at least partially, in Turkey. When Kurds moved to Western nations the assimilation was more thorough. Expatiate Kurds retained their Kurdish identity, but after a few generations in the West were more like their non-Kurdish neighbors.

Kurds are actually a branch of the Iranian people who migrated to the Middle East over a thousand years ago. This was about the same time that the Turks were moving into what is now Turkey. The Turks were more numerous and assertive than the Kurds, which is why Anatolia became modern Turkey and not Kurdistan. Today the Kurds are still a distinct minority in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, but violent separatist groups like the PKK still appeal to a minority of Kurds in the Middle East and hardly any of the Kurds living outside the Middle East.