The PKK (Kurdish Workers Party)

Anomie: Anarchy in the 21st Century

The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: پارتی کرێکارانی کوردستان / Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Since 1984, the PKK has utilized asymmetric warfare in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict (with several ceasefires between 1993 and 2013–2015). Although the PKK once sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its aims shifted toward autonomy and increased rights for Kurds within Turkey.