Turkey-Kurdish Forces War
Delta badges show 30-day net PF movement
Turkey and Kurdish forces remain in a sustained regional conflict amid Syrian battlefield and security spillover
Escalation Trace
Turkey and Kurdish forces remain in a sustained regional conflict amid Syrian battlefield and
Theater
Focus Region
Middle East
Geo-Linked Events
2
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) launched its armed insurgency against Turkey on August 15, attacking Turkish military outposts in Eruh and Şemdinli, beginning a conflict that would kill over 40,000 people across four decades.
PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan was captured in Kenya and handed to Turkey, where he was sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment); the PKK declared a ceasefire, though violence resumed within years.
A peace process ("Kurdish–Turkish peace process") began between the Turkish government and imprisoned Öcalan, resulting in a PKK ceasefire and negotiations that briefly reduced hostilities inside Turkey.
Peace talks collapsed after PKK attacks on Turkish security forces; Turkey launched massive air and ground operations against PKK positions in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkish cities, killing hundreds and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The Syrian civil war allowed Syrian Kurds (YPG/SDF) to seize large areas of northeastern Syria, establishing the autonomous region of Rojava; Turkey declared the YPG an extension of the PKK and an existential border threat.
Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch, invading the Afrin region of northern Syria, defeating YPG forces there and establishing a Turkish-controlled buffer zone along its Syrian border.
Following a partial U.S. troop withdrawal from northeast Syria, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, seizing a strip of SDF-held territory between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, displacing over 180,000 civilians.
Turkey launched Operation Claw-Lock in northern Iraq targeting PKK mountain strongholds, while continuing periodic drone strikes and artillery attacks on SDF positions in Syria, keeping the conflict active on multiple fronts simultaneously.
SDF backed by United States as anti-ISIS partner; PKK has historical ties to some European diaspora networks
Turkey views SDF as a PKK front; conducts cross-border strikes in Iraq and Syria. PKK operates from Qandil mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan.
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