Under threat from Turkey, is the PKK changing its strategy?

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) continues to wage its decades-long conflict against the Turkish government, but it has been several years since it staged a major operation in a Turkish city.

That changed on 1 October when it launched a suicide attack at the entrance of the Ministry of Interior’s headquarters in Ankara.

Timed to coincide with the opening of a new session of parliament, one PKK fighter carried out a suicide bombing while a second was shot and killed by the security forces. Two policemen were wounded in the attack.

Since the collapse of the last round of peace negotiations in 2015, the PKK, which Turkey designates as a terrorist organisation, has taken a significant hit from cross-border air strikes on its bases in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region while refraining from highly visible attacks.

"While the Ankara attack is certainly an escalation, it is less clear whether this represents a fundamental change of strategy by the PKK or a one-off strike" 

Following the 6 February earthquake in central Turkey, it announced a unilateral ceasefire to facilitate rescue operations, which lasted until June 13.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing coalition have cracked down on the ability of Kurdish political parties, particularly the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), to contest elections and for their representatives to serve in office.

In both ways, the Kurdish movement in Turkey is decidedly on the back foot.

While the Ankara attack is certainly an escalation, it is less clear whether this represents a fundamental change of strategy by the PKK or a one-off strike to show that it retains the capacity to hit Turkish government institutions.

“It was an attack to shake things up,” Dastan Jasim, a doctoral fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, told The New Arab. “Turkey has been continuously attacking not only PKK bases but generally every kind of Kurdish structure that we see in Turkey.”

“I don’t think that it’s a big change of strategy, but they have a clear feeling that things are more and more in a deadlock,” she added.

In the hours after the attack, the military wing of the PKK issued a statement claiming what it called a “sacrificial action” and a “defence against the disregard [for the] human rights” of Kurdish people.

If Erdogan’s government “does not stop its genocidal and fascist-motivated crimes, legitimate actions in the sense of revolutionary justice will continue,” the statement warned.

Selin Uysal, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted the highly symbolic timing and location of the attack, coming just hours before Erdogan was set to speak at the nearby parliament building.

“There are signs of a new era in the Kurdish movement after the outcome of the 2023 presidential election,” Uysal told The New Arab.

“The victory by Erdogan and his far-right allies means the Turkish government will maintain its harsh stance and political space for the Kurdish movement will keep narrowing,” she explained.

Since 2019, Erdogan’s government has arrested numerous politicians from the HDP, accusing them of links with the PKK. Dozens of HDP mayors and other elected officials were removed from office and replaced with appointees from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

In March 2021, a top Turkish state prosecutor accused the HDP of ties with the PKK and filed a lawsuit to ban the party. The HDP denies any links. However, during the 2023 parliamentary elections, it opted to run under the banner of the Green Left Party (YSP) rather than risk additional legal complications.

The thinking had been that PKK attacks on cities would limit the appeal of the HDP with the electorate, but Erdogan’s harsh approach to all varieties of Kurdish political actors may have undermined the logic of that strategy.

“Saying that this attack has been strategically bad [for the Kurds] would assume that there was a better option, some political resolution or approach on the table that was basically made impossible by this attack,” said Jasim, explaining why the PKK might have decided to escalate at this time.

"There seems little prospect that the PKK will be able to fight its way to the negotiating table while Erdogan's government remains in power" 

Yet, armed struggle hardly seems an attractive alternative. The PKK is under heavy pressure across the border in Iraq through air strikes and a network of Turkish bases deep in Iraqi territory.

Each year, Ankara launches a new set of operations designed to disrupt PKK activity and keep the group penned up in its mountain strongholds.

Turkey has also launched intense barrages on targets in northeastern Syria, which is controlled by Kurdish groups like the People’s Defense Units (YPG) that are supported by the US as a bulwark against the resurgence of Islamic State, but which Turkey views as part of the PKK.

According to a recent analysis by Reuters, the Turkish military launched at least 2,044 air strikes in Iraq and Syria in 2022, which represented a 53% increase from the previous year.

While claims about how effective these actions are at killing PKK fighters should not be taken at face value given their usefulness as propaganda, Turkey’s very real pressure is clearly taking a toll on the PKK.

The group “has been losing ground in Turkey in terms of activities and recruitment over the last years,” said Uysal.

Therefore, there seems little prospect that the PKK will be able to fight its way to the negotiating table while Erdogan’s government remains in power.

Following the Ankara attack, Turkey launched days of heavy airstrikes in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and northeastern Syria.

“All infrastructure-superstructure facilities and energy facilities belonging to the PKK/YPG in Iraq and Syria are legitimate targets,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a press conference.

Starting on 1 October, Turkish planes and drones launched a wave of airstrikes against targets across the Kurdistan Region, prompting condemnation from the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

Corresponding airstrikes in northeastern Syria killed at least eleven civilians and heavily damaged critical infrastructure facilities, including electricity stations and water treatment plants. More than 200 sites were hit in the days after Fidan’s warning, according to local media.

"If a strategic shift has occurred, it would deepen an already active and violent conflict in a part of the region that can ill afford it" 

Yet this Turkish military activity is more of an increase in tempo, rather than a new dynamic.

“I would not call what is happening right now in any way, shape or form a Turkish ‘response’ to the October 1 attack,” argued Jasim. “That just does not take into account what has been happening over the last years. I see it as a continuation of what already happened.”

It remains to be seen whether the PKK will launch additional operations against Turkish government institutions in the coming months or whether the attack in Ankara was a one-off mission to send a message.

If a strategic shift has occurred, it would deepen an already active and violent conflict in a part of the region that can ill afford it.

“The consequences will be more instability in already vulnerable parts of Iraq and Syria,” said Uysal.