hurriyetdailynews.com

Four locations in the Şemdinli district of southeastern Hakkari province came under simultaneous attacks by alleged members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, on Sunday night.

I really don’t know much about this, so I’ve got to do the basic research. I don’t even know what the PKK is. My first step is Wikipedia, searching PKK.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or پارتی کار که‌رانی کوردستان Parti Karkerani Kurdistan), commonly known as PKK, also known as KGK and formerly known as KADEK or Kongra-Gel,[6] is a Kurdish organization which has since 1984 been fighting an armed struggle against the Turkish state for an autonomous Kurdistan and greater cultural and political rights for the Kurds in Turkey.[1] The group was founded on 27 November 1978 and was led by Abdullah Öcalan. The PKK’s ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism - although since his imprisonment, Ocalan has abandoned orthodox Marxism.[10]

Okay, I get this. The Kurds want a state. I’ll need to know more about Kurdish nationalism. Search, Kurdish Nationalism.

The Kurdish nationalist struggle first emerged in the late 19th century when a unified movement demanded the establishment of a Kurdish state. Revolts did occur sporadically but only decades after the Ottoman centralist policies of the 19th century began did the first modern Kurdish nationalist movement emerge with uprising led by a Kurdish landowner and head of the powerful Shemdinan family, Sheik Ubeydullah.

So the struggle is over 100 years old.

During the relatively open government of the 1950s, Kurds gained political office and started working within the framework of the Turkish Republic to further their interests but this move towards integration was halted with the 1960 Turkish coup d’état.[6] The 1970s saw an evolution in Kurdish nationalism as Marxist political thought influenced a new generation of Kurdish nationalists opposed to the local feudal authorities who had been a traditional source of opposition to authority, eventually they would form the militant separatist Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK), or Kurdistan Workers Party in English.

They were integrating into Turkish society, although being a distinct group until the 1960s, when the Turkish government changed—and they discovered Marx. While the PKK is discovering Marx, the Turkish army is discovering that every ten years or so, they can try to take over the government. There have been several coup attempts in the last 50 years.

It should be noted that the modern Middle East was basically drawn on a blackboard after WWI by the victorious Allies. There was always a question why they did not give the Kurds their own nation, since—

Because of the Kurds’ geographical position at the southern and eastern fringe of the empire and the mountainous topography of their territory, in addition to the limited transportation and communication system, agents of the state had little access to Kurdish provinces and were forced to make informal agreements with tribal chiefs. This bolstered the Kurds’ authority and autonomy; for instance, the Ottoman qadi and mufti as a result did not have jurisdiction over religious law in most Kurd regions.[8]

At the end of World War I, Kurds still had the legal right to conduct their affairs in Kurdish, celebrate unique traditions, and identify themselves as a distinct ethnic group.[10] The Treaty of Sèvres signed in 1920 ‘suggested’ an independent Kurdish and Armenian state but after the establishment of the Turkish Republic by a Turk ethnonationalist government which balked at the treaty, the 1923 Lausanne Treaty was signed which made no mention of the Kurds. The once politically unified Ottoman Kurdistan was then divided into the different administrative and political systems in Iraq, Turkey and Syria.[11]

Let’s leave off here for today. Basically, the Kurds used to have a state, but it was taken away and divided into three nations who, I believe, have a habit of trying to exterminate the Kurds. But we’ll see. This is research. Right now, I don’t know anything.