Although the Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920 between the Ottoman Empire and the allied forces, had called for the creation of a Kurdish state, the plan never materialised. In 1923 the boundaries of Turkey were drawn so that the Kurdish people were spread among four countries. Today, it is estimated that 20 to 40 million Kurds are split between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
The PKK started using violence as a means to aid its cause in 1984. Since then, the struggle against the Turkish armed forces has claimed around 45, 000 lives. The fighting, which took place mainly in the south east of the country, destroyed over 3,000 villages and led to 11 Turkish provinces being declared a state of emergency and put under military rule.
The fighting reached a climax in the mid 1990s, after dialogue between the Kurds and Turks broke down in 1992, and culminated in Mr Ocalan being arrested in Kenya and sentenced to death for treason in 1999.
The group, with Marxist-Leninist roots, introduced a five-year long cease-fire and watered down their demands for an independent state. They now call for greater constitutional and linguistic rights for Kurdish people, for greater involvement in political processes, the release of PKK members and the removal of ethnic discrimination from Turkey’s constitution.
In 2003 the Turkish government allowed limited use of the Kurdish language in state television broadcasts. However, the cease-fire ended in 2004 and the PKK restarted their armed campaign. The year 2008 saw a string of bomb attacks on both civilians and armed forces, indicating that the group was returning to its ruthless means.
The group is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and the US and as a result, their 2010 offer that they would consider a truce if Kurdish civil rights were extended, was rejected by the government on the grounds that they do not engage with terrorist groups.
Mr. Ocalan remains a very powerful figure in the movement. In December 2012 he ordered Kurdish political prisoners to end a 68-day long hunger strike and has been involved in peace talks with the government since December.
The peace talks were almost derailed in January when the co-founder of the PKK and two other prominent activists were found dead in Paris under suspicious circumstances.