By Lisa Rogers

As was stated above, in the 1930’s the conflict between the Turkish and the Kurds lay dormant. Then, in 1984, Abdullah Ocalan began the PKK, or the Kurdish Workers Party. Ocalan ruled the organization as a sort of dictatorship. He was the supreme commander and no one could object to his orders. In 1999, Ocalan was arrested and now faces the death penalty. After the arrest of Ocalan, Murat Karayilan became the new leader of the PKK. He was arrested after a gas pipeline that ran from Iran to Turkey exploded. While the formation of the PKK was the event that got the conflict going again, I do believe that the conflict was inevitable. The Kurds were being subjected to horrible and unjustified treatment. You can only oppress people for so long before they retaliate. However, without a leader such as Ocalan, it’s possible that the conflict may have taken a more peaceful route instead of resorting to terrorism. Although there are several terrorist groups fighting for Kurdish independence, the PKK is the most widely recognized.
In 2005, Erdogan, the former prime minister or Turkey, claimed that the government had handled the Kurdish conflict the wrong way and said that the problem must be solved using democracy. However, in his 8 years in office, he failed to solve the problem and many of the Kurds blame him for not doing so. In 2009, however, he had came up with a plan to bring a peaceful solution to the problem, but the implementation of the plan was stalled when several rebels made their way back into Turkey from their bases in Iraq.
In the Turkish and Kurdish conflict, terrorism has definitely played a role. The PKK was responsible for “restarting” the conflict again after it lied dormant for years, and most of the news articles and the attention that the conflict gets is centered around the attacks and the battles with the PKK. However, there are some groups that are peacefully fighting for Kurdish independence, and have plans for civil disobedience movements.
Recently, the Turkish military conducted airstrikes to target different suspected Kurdish bases. The Iraqi Kurdish authorities did report that seven civilians were killed during the air strikes. Iraq did not support the airstrikes that occurred on their soil, and they say that the Turkish Kurdish conflict should stay on Turkish soil.
It has been predicted that the nature of the conflict will become even more violent after the “cross border operation” of the Turkish military into northern Iraq, the area where most of the PKK rebels have bases. Recently, soldiers were moved to the Iraq border, but this move has had little to no effect on the conflict.
In the situation of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, terrorism seems to have actually stalled the reform from happening. In 2009, as was mentioned above, the PKK rebels prevented the implementation of the reform that would have granted the Kurdish people more rights in Turkey. The deaths of Turkish soldiers and civilians at the hands of the PKK have also created a need for retaliation to protect their soldiers and citizens and to shut down the PKK. If the Kurdish had stuck to peaceful methods of fighting oppression, such as civil disobedience before groups had resorted to terrorism, it is possible that the conflict would not still be going on.
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