Category World News

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) says it is disbanding after more than 40 years of armed struggle against the Turkish state.

The announcement came after the PKK held its congress in northern Iraq on Friday, about two months after its imprisoned founder, Abdullah Ocalan, also known as “Appo”, called on the group to disarm in February.

For most of its history, the PKK has been labelled a terrorist group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States. It fought for Kurdish autonomy for years, a fight that has been declared over now.

This is all you need to know about why Ocalan and the PKK have given up their armed struggle.

Who is Abdullah Ocalan?

Ocalan was born to a poor Kurdish farming family on April 4, 1948, in Omerli, Sanliurfa, a Kurdish-majority part of Turkiye.

He moved to Ankara to study political science at the university there, where he became politically active; driven, biographers say, by the sense of marginalisation that many Kurds in Turkiye felt.

By the mid-1970s, he was advocating for Kurdish nationalism and went on to found the PKK in 1978.

Six years later, the group launched a separatist rebellion against Turkiye under his command.

Ocalan had absolute rule over the PKK and worked to stamp out rival Kurdish groups, monopolising the struggle for Kurdish liberation, according to Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence, by Aliza Marcus.

At the time, Kurds were denied the right to speak their language, give their children Kurdish names or show any expression of nationalism.

Despite Ocalan’s authoritarian rule, his charisma and positioning as a champion of Kurdish rights led most Kurds across Turkiye to love and respect him, calling him “Appo”, which means Uncle.

What was the armed rebellion like?

Violent.

More than 40,000 people died between 1984 and 2024, with thousands of Kurds fleeing the violence in southeastern Turkiye into cities further north.

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Ocalan led operations from neighbouring Syria, which was a source of tensions between the then-Assad regime and Turkiye.

The PKK resorted to brutal tactics beginning in the late 1980s and early 90s. According to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations from 2007, the group, under Ocalan, kidnapped foreign tourists, adopted suicide bombing operations and attacked Turkish diplomatic offices in Europe.

Perhaps even worse, the PKK would repress Kurdish civilians who did not assist the group in its guerrilla warfare.

Did Ocalan change his views?

Eventually, more than a decade after he was caught.

In 1998, Ocalan was forced to flee Syria due to the threat of a Turkish incursion to capture him. A year later, Turkish agents arrested him on a plane in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks to intel received from the US.

He was brought back to Turkiye and handed the death penalty, yet his sentence was changed to life in prison after Turkiye abolished capital punishment in 2004 in a bid to become a member of the EU.

By 2013, Ocalan changed his stance on separatism and began lobbying for comprehensive Kurdish rights and greater regional autonomy in Turkiye, saying he no longer believed in the effectiveness of armed rebellion.

This radical shift led to the start of a shaky peace process between the PKK and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The peace process led to some freedoms for Kurds, yet fighting erupted between the government and the PKK in 2015 due in part to fears that the party was trying to create a Kurdish statelet in neighbouring Syria during its civil war.

At the time, many Kurds from southern Turkiye had left for Syria to help the Kurds there fight against ISIL (ISIS).

In 2015, the AK Party had also formed a new alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which was staunchly opposed to any peace process involving the PKK.

What’s different about this peace process?

In announcing its disarmament, the PKK said it has “completed its historical mission” by “breaking the policy of denial and annihilation of our people and bringing the Kurdish issue to a point where solving it can occur through democratic politics”.

However, analysts argue that there are other reasons behind the decision.

The PKK and its Kurdish allies in the region are more vulnerable than before due to recent developments, according to Sinan Ulgen, an expert on Turkiye and senior fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels.

“The reason the PKK gave up its armed struggle has to do with the change in the international context,” Ulgen explained.

US President Donald Trump does not see Syria as a “strategic focal point” for foreign policy and is, therefore, unlikely to keep supporting Kurdish armed groups in the country as it had during the fight against ISIL, he explained.

In addition, the new government in Syria is on good terms with Turkiye, unlike under the now-overthrown Assad regime.

This new relationship could significantly hurt the ability of the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), to operate along the Syria-Turkiye border.

Will Turkiye follow through?

The political climate seems ripe for that.

Main political parties, such as the AK Party and its rival Republican People’s Party (CHP), have vocally or tacitly supported a new peace process.

But it was the MHP, long opposed to any overtures to the Kurds, that created the window for a new peace process.

In April 2024, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli invited Ocalan to renounce “terrorism” in front of Turkiye’s parliament in exchange for possible parole.

“The fact it was Bahceli … was kind of unbelievable,” said Sinem Adar, an expert on Turkiye with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWB).

Bahceli’s change of heart is probably to help his coalition partner, Erdogan, run in and win the next national election, experts told Al Jazeera.

Under the constitution, Erdogan cannot run for another term unless an early election is called, which needs 360 out of 600 votes in parliament.

To add the votes of Kurdish delegates from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) to the MHP-AK Party alliance’s votes, “[Erdogan] needs to broaden his political support base in parliament over and above the current ruling alliance”, Carnegie’s Ulgen told Al Jazeera.

What happens to Ocalan now?

It is unclear if he will be released, but his prison conditions could significantly improve, said Ulgen.

He said the government would prefer to gradually increase Ocalan’s freedoms, so it can gauge the reactions of his support base and the broader public.

Many people in Turkiye still view Ocalan as a “terrorist” and blame him for a conflict that has taken the lives of so many.

The United States and China reached a deal on Monday to suspend heavy tariffs against each other’s imports for 90 days.

The recent breakthrough marked a detente in the tariff war launched by US President Donald Trump since he returned to office in January. While Trump initially unveiled tariffs against most countries, he then paused most of them – except against China, the US’s biggest economic rival.

Tit-for-tat tariffs that the US and China imposed on each other had snowballed into heavy duties, as high as 145 percent on Chinese goods looking to enter the US, and 125 percent on US products looking to access the Chinese market.

On Monday, Trump said he could speak with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping by the end of the week, adding that the economic negotiations had led to a “reset” between the two countries.

What did China and the US say?

The US and China released a joint statement on Monday announcing the suspension of tariffs.

The suspension came after two days of trade talks in Geneva, Switzerland. In recent weeks,  Trump had repeatedly said tariff talks with China were under way, but officials in Beijing had denied any ongoing negotiations before the meetings in Geneva.

In the statement on Monday, the two countries said they recognise the importance of their “bilateral economic and trade relationship” as well as the importance of a “sustainable, long-term, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship”.

The statement said both nations would take steps to suspend most tariffs by Wednesday.

What are the specific terms of the tariff reductions?

The US brought down the tariff on Chinese goods from 145 percent to 30 percent, while China brought down the tariff on the US from 125 percent to 10 percent.

On April 2, the US had imposed a “reciprocal tariff” of 34 percent on Chinese goods, on top of 20 percent tariffs that Trump had previously imposed on Chinese products since starting his current term. Those earlier tariffs were driven by Trump’s accusation that China was to blame for the fentanyl crisis that has ravaged thousands of American lives and led to several deaths in the US.

In effect, on April 2, Chinese goods were tariffed at 54 percent.

Beijing hit back with a 34 percent tariff on imports from the US. What followed was a tit-for-tat escalation, where the US and China kept hiking tariffs against each other. At the end, the US had imposed a 145 percent tariff on China while China had imposed a 125 percent tariff on the US.

On May 12, they both agreed to slash all tariffs imposed on April 2 and subsequently to 10 percent. But if pre-April 2 tariffs are accounted for, Chinese goods still face a 30 percent tariff. Additionally, specific products from China, such as electric vehicles, steel and aluminium, are subject to even higher, separate tariffs imposed in recent years.

All the tariff suspensions are only for 90 days as of now – subject to review based on broader trade negotiations between the US and China.

What is the main goal of this 90-day suspension?

The US and China agreed, per their joint statement, to establish a mechanism to continue talking about their trade relations.

“This move is significant primarily because it reflects a strategic retreat by the US, rather than a genuine shift in the broader trajectory of US-China relations,” Carlos Lopes, a Chatham House associate fellow for the Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera.

Lopes, whose areas of expertise include international trade and China, explained that the rolling back of tariffs underscores that China held its ground, compelling the US to revise its approach. “In that sense, the rollback signals the limits of grandstanding and unilateralism in a deeply interconnected global economy. It’s a tactical pause, not a strategic realignment.”

Why did Trump revise his tariff approach?

“The reversal is a recognition of domestic economic pressures,” Lopes said.

He added that the tariffs were raising prices for American consumers and undermining key manufacturing sectors, particularly those reliant on Chinese intermediate goods.

“The US economy, despite its scale, cannot isolate itself from global supply chains without serious collateral damage. Moreover, President Trump thrives on projecting strength through negotiation – but bargaining without structure or a clear endgame eventually reveals weakness. The rollback reflects this internal contradiction,” he said.

Fentanyl – and China’s role in the supply chain of the deadly synthetic opioid – was never the major factor behind Trump’s tariffs against Beijing, Lopes said.

“Fentanyl was part of the public discourse but not a fundamental driver of the tariff decision. It served more as a symbolic issue for political messaging, particularly to domestic audiences. The core dynamics at play here are structural – supply chain interdependence, inflationary concerns, and electoral calculations – not drug policy,” the Chatham House analyst said.

What mechanisms have been established to ensure this works?

In the statement, both countries named representatives for negotiations.

Vice Premier of the State Council He Lifeng has been named to represent China. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have been named to represent the US.

How have global markets responded to this agreement?

The Monday announcement caused stocks and the dollar to see a surge. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 gained 184.28 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1,161 points and the Nasdaq composite gained 779.43 points.

The euro went down by 1.5 percent at $1.1078. The yen weakened and the US currency shot up 2.1 percent at 148.49.

In the wake of Trump’s tariff threats, global markets had seen a considerable fall.

US-China trade: Deeper challenges

The world’s two largest economies, the US and China, have both long competed for economic preeminence and relied on each other as major trading partners.

The US is China’s largest export market, constituting 12.9 percent of Chinese exports in 2023, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).

China is the US’s third-largest export market, behind Canada and Mexico. Chinese goods made up 14.8 percent of the US’s total imports in 2023.

That trade provides US consumers with affordable products and allows US companies to earn billions of dollars annually from sales in China.

China gains billions of dollars in exports and millions of jobs from this trade relationship. Analysts at the US financial services company Goldman Sachs estimated that if the US continued its trade war with China, up to 16 million jobs in China could be at risk.

But, in the US, there have also been growing calls for a reevaluation of that economic relationship. During his first term, Trump waged a “trade war” on China, seeking to balance the trade deficit the US had with the country. In 2024, the US had a $295.4bn trade deficit with China – the largest trade deficit than any trading partner.

While the Chinese leadership has consistently argued that the trade war does not benefit anyone, former US President Joe Biden continued several of Trump’s tariffs and added to them.

Other concerns about the trade relationship flagged by analysts, including at the Council on Foreign Relations, include worries of manufacturing job losses in the US and fears of Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft.

As a result, successive US administrations have increased the scrutiny of exports to China to prevent sensitive US technology from reaching the Chinese military.