Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) executive committee member Murat Karayılan, in a recent interview with Stêrk TV, marked the 40th anniversary of the launch of the PKK’s armed struggle and resistance efforts of imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan.
Öcalan has led an “unparalleled resistance for the existence and freedom of the Kurdish people, for equality, the brother- and sisterhood of the people, women’s freedom, democracy and freedom,” Karayılan said, adding that the movement continues despite the PKK leader’s isolated imprisonment since 1999 in Turkey.
Karayılan also congratulated international efforts to free Öcalan, highlighting the ‘Freedom for Öcalan, a political solution to the Kurdish question’ campaign which has spurred action such a recent letter signed by 69 Nobel prize laureates demanding Öcalan be released for the renewal of Kurdish-Turkish peace talks.
The 15 August offensive occurred during a period in Turkey characterised by brutal state repression after the military coup on 12 September 1980. Following the coup, the Turkish constitution was suspended, the parliament abolished and many political parties and trade unions banned. Hundreds of thousands of people were tortured, thousands disappeared, and approximately 650,000 people were arrested including journalists, many of whom were imprisoned or killed.
The military regime led by General Kenan Evren handed out 122 death sentences to suspected militants and sympathisers of the PKK, which lead to the PKK’s decision to move most of its militants to Syria and establish military academies in Lebanon and Syria in order to begin the political and military preparations leading to the 15 August offensive.
As such, Karayilan describes the 15 August offensive, the beginning of the PKK’s organised armed struggle, as “an offensive against genocidal politics and extermination of the Turkish state against the Kurdish people and for the existence and freedom of the Kurdish people.”
Karayilan highlights that the offensive, also referred to as the “rebirth of the Kurdish people”, prompted a new wave of rebellions by the Kurdish people in Turkey, who were “regaining their hope and courage”.
The offensive and the following resistance not only influenced the Kurdish people in Turkey, Karayilan explained, but also other Kurdish-majority regions. For example in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) the people were inspired, by the guerilla resistance and the uprising in Kurdish areas of Turkey, to rebel against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
Recent attacks on Kurdish language and culture were against the most important values of Kurdish society, the PKK executive said, calling for Kurds to “stand up for their language, traditional dances and slogans”.
The PKK executive committee member further condemned the recent attacks of the Turkish army on the KRI and said that the Kurdistan Democracy Party (KDP) must be held accountable for supporting the Turkish Armed Forces in the cross-border incursion.
