&w=3840&q=100)
From bullets to ballots: Kurdish fighters lay down arms, 5 key things about Turkey-PKK peace deal
This handout photograph taken and released by Turkish Presidency Press Office on July 7, 2025, shows Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C), MPs of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Equality and Democracy (DEM) party Pervin Buldan (2nd L) and Mithat Sancar (L), head of Turkish Intelligence Ibrahim Kalin (R) and Justice and Development (AK) Party Deputy Chairman Efkan Ala (2nd R) posing during their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. AFP
Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will start laying down their arms at a ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday, two months after the militant group ended its armed struggle against the Turkish state.
The move comes in response to a historic call by jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan in February, urging them to end their decades-long insurgency and embrace democratic means to defend the rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority.
Here are five key dates in the history of Ocalan and the PKK, whose violent struggle for a Kurdish homeland sparked a conflict that left more than 40,000 dead:
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
1978-1984: PKK formed, armed struggle begins
With Marxist-Leninist roots, the PKK was formed in 1978 by Ankara University students, with the ultimate goal of achieving the Kurds' liberation through armed struggle. They chose Ocalan, a political science student, as leader.
A Turkish military coup in 1980 forced the PKK and its leader to flee to Syria and Lebanon. The group then took up the armed struggle in 1984. Its militants trained in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, east of Beirut, while attacking Turkish military posts and convoys.
Turkey hit back, sparking a wave of violence, especially in the Kurdish-majority southeast, that left the region in a state of near-civil war.
1999: Ocalan's arrest
Ocalan was forced to leave Syria in 1998 after Ankara threatened Damascus over its backing for the PKK, with the militant leader fleeing between several European states.
He was eventually arrested in Kenya on February 15, 1999, flown back to Turkey and sentenced to death.
There he was placed in solitary confinement on the Imrali prison island, off the coast of Istanbul.
In 2002, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when Turkey started the process of abolishing the death penalty as part of reforms backed by the European Union.
2013-2015: Fragile truce
Ocalan urged the PKK to lay down their arms in a letter on March 21, 2013, the Kurdish New Year, as part of talks with the government of then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now president.
Turkey's National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) had also held talks with the PKK in Oslo.
But the truce collapsed in July 2015 after a deadly bomb attack in Suruc, a town near the Syrian border.
2015-2016: Clashes in southeast
Turkey bombed PKK targets in Iraq and led a vast military offensive at home. The PKK hit back with 'urban warfare'.
There were fierce daily battles in the southeast, including in the city of Diyarbakir, which has left a bitter legacy among the local population.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Ties deteriorated after a failed 2016 coup, with a government crackdown on Kurdish political activities and the arrest of Kurdish politicians.
Turkey also deployed troops in northern Syria to protect its frontier.
2024-2025: PKK ends armed struggle
After a decade of status quo marked by occasional attacks, a hardline nationalist ally of Erdogan extended Ocalan an olive branch, urging him to renounce violence in a shock move backed by the Turkish leader.
Indirect talks facilitated by the pro-Kurdish DEM party began, and on February 27, Ocalan made a historic call, urging his PKK to disband and his fighters to lay down their weapons in favour of a democratic struggle for the rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
9 minutes ago
- Mint
Ukraine Anti-Graft Investigator Detained Over Russia Links
Ukraine's law enforcement officials arrested an anti-corruption investigator and raided several others on suspicion they were working with Russia. The head of a local office of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau in the eastern city of Dnipro was detained as part of the sweep carried out without court orders, the bureau known as NABU said in a post on Telegram. The man identified as Ruslan Magamedrasulov was assisting his father in selling industrial hemp to Russia, Ukraine's security services and the prosecutor general's office said in a statement, adding that they were investigating whether he also traded secret information with Russia's special services. NABU said it was studying the situation and would provide details later. The raid is likely to throw a spotlight on Ukraine's commitment to root out corruption, which Kyiv has been trying to address since pro-European protests in 2014. NABU was set up at the demand of Ukraine's donors a decade ago to investigate graft among top officials. Its work has been praised and supported by Kyiv's allies, but the bureau has faced attempts to weaken its position. In June NABU named former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov a suspect in a corruption probe, making him the highest-level official in President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's government to be subject to a graft investigation. Chernyshov denied any wrongdoing. This month, Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation accused Vitaliy Shabunin, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a civil society organization, of evading military service, raising concerns of possible political revenge. The raid came as Russia unleashed a renewed attack on Ukraine, targeting the country's central and western regions with drones and missiles as Kyiv's allies pledged increased air defenses to help shield the war-ravaged nation.
News18
13 minutes ago
- News18
History As Leftist Propaganda: How Distorians Still Dictate Bharat's Past
Last Updated: Bharat, even after more than seven decades of its Independence, is still in search of a history that's truly its own. The recent storm over changes in NCERT's history textbooks has reignited an old and unresolved debate: Who owns Bharat's history, and who has the right to narrate it? Critics—largely from the academic and media establishment—have slammed the revisions as politically motivated, accusing the government of 'saffronisation" and ideological distortion. But this outrage, however loud, sidesteps a deeper truth: For decades after Independence, Bharat's historiography—particularly what entered school curricula—was crafted not by a plurality of scholarly voices, but by a small coterie of Marxist and Nehruvian intellectuals who captured the country's academic institutions and think tanks through political patronage and interference. Such was the stranglehold of Leftist historians such as Romila Thapar, Bipan Chandra, Irfan Habib, and RS Sharma that there was no space for historiography other than the one rooted in economic determinism—a worldview that was dismissive of Bharat's civilisational achievements and ethos. This intellectual monopoly romanticised Islamic invaders, ignored indigenous resistance, and downplayed Bharat's ancient (Sanatana) accomplishments. Babur was, thus, portrayed as a curious naturalist and a doting father (Nehru called him a 'renaissance prince"), Akbar as a liberal genius, and Aurangzeb as a misunderstood ruler. In contrast, Hindu figures like Krishnadeva Raya, Maharana Pratap, and Shivaji were relegated to the margins. Even native empires of repute such as Vijayanagar, Ahom, and Karkota were reduced to footnotes. The guiding ideology seemed to be: De-sacralise Bharatiya civilisation and sanctify its conquerors. The latest controversy surrounding the NCERT textbook of Class VIII centres largely around Akbar, long celebrated as a liberal visionary. His policies of religious tolerance and Rajput alliances have always dominated textbook narratives. So, when the revised syllabus now includes unsavoury details such as the 1568 massacre at Chittorgarh—where over 30,000 civilians were killed after the fort had already fallen—it's seen as an assault on his legacy. There is no denying Akbar was an able ruler, far ahead of many contemporaries, especially in the Islamic world. But glorification should not come at the cost of truth. The Chittorgarh massacre was not a battlefield tragedy—it was an act of vengeance after a successful siege. To hide such acts is distortion; to justify them by citing plunders by Hindu rulers is lazy scholarship. A massacre is not just a plunder, and inventing false equivalences to cover up omissions is intellectual dishonesty. No historical figure—however revered—should be above scrutiny. If Akbar has been over-glorified, the Mughal dynasty as a whole has often been portrayed as the pinnacle of Bharatiya civilisation. This historical approach needs recalibration. Yes, the Mughals built a vast empire, set up uniform law and order machinery across the subcontinent, and promoted art and architecture. But they were also foreigners, as 17th-century French traveller François Bernier observed, who needed large standing armies even in peacetime to suppress dissent. Babur's own memoir, Baburnama, revels in violence against 'infidels", as it mentions how he would, after a battlefield, build 'a tower of infidels' skulls". Jahangir, the lover-boy Salim of Mughal-e-Azam, ordered the killing of Arjan Dev, the fifth Sikh guru, in the very first year of his reign. Shah Jahan, romanticised for building the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife, Mumtaj Mahal, oversaw the construction of this 'monument of love" while famines ravaged the countryside. Such was the destitution at that time, as Abdul Hamid Lahori writes in his biography of Shah Jahan, that 'dog's flesh was sold for goat's flesh and the pounded bones of the dead were mixed with flour and sold". As for Aurangzeb, he institutionalised bigotry by reviving jizya, banning Hindu festivals, and demolishing temples. These accounts aren't fringe—they come from the Mughals' own court chronicles. To question this kind of lopsided narrative is not communalism—it's historiographical integrity. Slow and Cautious Reforms Despite media alarmism, the NCERT revisions are neither sweeping nor comprehensive. They are excruciatingly slow and excessively cautious, to the extent of appearing apologetic. The textbooks continue to uphold a worldview where invaders are humanised, native resistance is sidelined, and Bharatiya civilisational achievements are ignored, if not totally dismissed. Rather than boldly rewriting history with balance and authenticity, NCERT often appears hesitant—fearful of pushback from entrenched guardians of the academia, of being branded communal and Islamophobic, and of challenging globally palatable 'secular', Leftist narratives. The outrage against textbook revisions is less about defending historical objectivity and more about resisting a long-overdue correction. For decades, history writing in the country has been filtered through a narrow ideological prism—one that celebrated foreign invasions, concealed Islamic brutality, and undermined Sanatana ingenuity and fightback. Bharat, even after more than seven decades of its Independence, is still in search of a history that's truly its own. A history where Akbar is studied not as a saint, not as a villain, but as a ruler with his strengths and weaknesses intact. A history where the Mughal empire is examined for both its splendour and its savagery. And more importantly, a history that is truly Bharatiya in nature, after being rescued from the vice-like grip of Leftist historians, who in reality are distorians… err, eminent distorians. The time has come to challenge these distorians—and expose their hollow intellectual halo. Only then will their iron grip be slackened. And Bharat's history will be salvaged for good. PS: The Leftist intellectuals hijacked the history of Bharat in the 1960s by proposing to write from the 'people's perspective". Romila Thapar, in fact, went a step ahead when she, in 1962, promised to come up with a new way of history writing that would let the readers know 'what the elephant keeper of the emperor Ashoka thought of his edicts" or what the lives and thoughts of the masons who built the Taj Mahal were. More than six decades later, Thapar's grand promise remains unfulfilled. The Left-dominated history of Bharat is today stuck in a soulless, ideologically obsessed terrain where neither the story of the king nor the 'lives and thoughts' of the masses are told effectively. The writer is the author of the book, 'Eminent Distorians: Twists and Truths in Bharat's History', published early this year by BluOne Ink publications. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. About the Author Utpal Kumar Utpal Kumar is Opinion Editor, News18 and Firstpost. He can be reached at He tweets @utpal_kumar1 tags : Indian history NCERT books view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 21, 2025, 15:39 IST News opinion Opinion | History As Leftist Propaganda: How Distorians Still Dictate Bharat's Past Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The Hindu
34 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Satheesan accuses Election Commission of ‘leaking' Kerala voters' list to CPI(M), warns of legal action over poll bias
Kerala's Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan has accused the State Election Commission of acting as 'a tool' of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] in connection with the upcoming local body elections. He has warned that if the commission fails to ensure a free and fair election, the United Democratic Front will resort to legal action. Addressing the media in Kannur after inaugurating the handing-over ceremony of documents to 83 landless people in the Kannur Corporation limits on Monday (July 21, 2025), Mr. Satheesan alleged that the draft voters' list was 'leaked' to the CPI(M) ahead of its official publication on July 23 and claimed that the list was tampered with to remove numerous names. 'The time provided, just five days from July 23 to August 7, for the voters to verify and add their names is grossly inadequate,' he said, demanding an extension of at least 30 days. He also criticised the commission for failing to implement a cap of 1,100 voters per booth as was enforced during the General Elections. 'In rural areas, the number has gone up to 1,300, making it impossible to complete voting even by 10 p.m.,' he said, alleging that the move was intended to 'aid the CPI(M) in disrupting the polls.' Mr. Satheesan further claimed that the Election Commission's actions indicated 'clear support for attempts to sabotage the election process.' 'The commission must act independently, without bowing to government pressure,' he said. Mr. Satheesan also questioned the CPI(M)'s 'ambiguous response' to recent remarks by SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan. 'Their vague statement confirms our allegations that the Chief Minister is using Vellappally to spread communal narratives. A leader associated with the teachings of Sree Narayana Guru should not utter words that go against his philosophy,' he said. 'Govt-Governor tussle a staged drama' He also criticised the recent stand-off between the State government and the Governor, terming it 'a staged drama' to divert attention from mounting public discontent. 'Both the Governor and the government escalated a trivial issue for days, only to settle it after tarnishing students and universities. These theatrics emerge every time the government face a crisis,' he said. Mr. Satheesan raised questions about the earlier appointment of Mohanan Kunnummal as the Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University of Health University (KUHS) by the same LDF government. 'If he is RSS, why did the government appoint him? Was there a prior understanding with the Sangh Parivar?' he asked. On the controversy surrounding the death of former Kannur ADM Naveen Babu, Mr. Satheesan demanded that the Revenue Minister respond to the latest revelations. Mr. Satheesan dismissed that claims that Youth Congress workers blocked an ambulance at Vithura in Thiruvananthapuram as a 'manufactured lie', citing statements by the deceased's family reportedly asserting that protesters 'had in fact helped the patient into the ambulance.'
