The Changing Actions of the PKK and a Few Predictions

Guest author: Hakan Güngör

When recent developments in Turkey and the terrorist attacks carried out are assessed, it can be seen that the PKK has made a serious and fundamental change in its actions. When we look at what this change is, the basic change encountered is a fundamental transformation and change not only in the form of the attacks but also in their method and target.

In terms of form, the change is that the attacks are carried out by two-person teams, almost in the manner of a suicide attack. The team carrying out the attack accepts death after carrying it out.

As for targets, the local region is giving way to the metropolises and Turkey as a whole, and local military units to strategic public institutions, especially in the west. Beyond this, and even more critically, the aim is assessed to be not only to shake state authority through attacks carried out across the country but also to spread fear throughout Turkey and so prepare the people for an emotional rupture.

The methodological change shows itself in the aim of the attacks. In its earlier attacks, the primary goal at the first stage was to intimidate the population by spreading fear in the region and to secure popular support. At the next stage, the logic and sequence followed seem to have been to create, through local attacks in the region, an environment without security in which state authority was shaken, and then to fill the resulting vacuum. The aim is to spread the fear of terrorism across the country. The emotional reactions that follow will be directed at our citizens of Kurdish origin living in the west. And with that, a serious and deep emotional rupture will occur between the two communities.

Considering all these developments from a single point, regionally and specifically in terms of Turkey, may be incomplete. The picture needs to be viewed as a whole and a global assessment made. Because the Kurdish question is no longer just an internal problem and issue of Turkey. It has acquired a fully global dimension.

In the light of these assessments, we can say that the PKK is carrying out such attacks as a prototype and for training purposes, and that over time it will increase attacks of this kind. We can foresee that, in terms of timing, this will follow a course parallel to developments in Syria.

In this case, different scenarios involving Syria can be considered. As one possible scenario, a Turkish fighter jet or jets could be shot down during an air operation in northern Syria. This could draw Turkey into a hot conflict. A ground operation launched by Turkey in Syria could give the PKK the chance to counter-attack with the new type of action it has prepared and developed.

The costs of the operation added to Turkey’s economic bottleneck, news of soldiers killed, and the attacks the PKK could carry out on strategic targets across Turkey, together with an emotional rupture that current conditions could bring to maturity, could open the way to the division of the country and the founding of a Kurdish state.

For the possible problem to be eliminated before it becomes complicated, it is indispensable that Turkey take steps towards democratisation without delay, free the law from the yoke of politics and establish justice. If this is sacrificed to political interests and takes place only among the AKP, Abdullah Öcalan and MİT actors, without a comprehensive, inclusive and holistic move towards democratisation and the rule of law, we can foresee that the problem will become even more complicated. The precondition for building a peaceful, happy and prosperous society is to run a solution process based on democracy, law and justice, with accountability and transparency at its core. Update (October 2026): Since this article was written, the process has taken a different course. After Öcalan’s call of 27 February 2025, the PKK announced its dissolution and its decision to lay down arms in 2025 and announced that it had withdrawn its forces from Turkey. On 10 August 2026 the Grand National Assembly passed the framework law governing the process; the law does not cover Öcalan personally.