Kurdish rebels have tried for decades to break away from Turkey and establish their own nation state

The Ankara terrorist bombing on Sunday that killed 37 people and injured 120, has been blamed on the PKK, a separatist organisation formed in the 1970s to fight for Kurdish independence.

Kurdistan Workers Party rebel leader alleged terrorist Abdullah Ocalan 1992. p/

THE terrorist bomb attack in Ankara on Sunday, which killed 37 and injured 120 people, has been blamed on the Kurdish Workers Party, better known as the separatist group PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane).

The bombing was in a response to a recent crackdown by Turkey on the PKK, and is the latest in a string of attacks which began last June. The group has been a thorn in Turkey’s side for decades, fighting for their own separate state.

Kurds have been fighting to establish their own state since the early 20th century, but despite their strong sense of a separate identity as well as their own language the Kurds have never achieved the status of a nation state.

Police forensics work at Sunday’s explosion site in Ankara, Turkey. It was the second deadly attack blamed on Kurdish militants in the capital in the past month.

The origins of the Kurds are obscure. Although there are references in ancient literature to people such as the Kardouchoi in the 5th century BC, scholars dispute whether these are the ancestors of the modern Kurds. Some of the land they claim as their traditional homeland is also claimed by the Assyrians, who also want their own nation state, but whose claims to being separate are more ancient than the Kurds, going back to the Assyrian empire, which lasted from about the 25th to the 7th centuries BC.

The Kurds emerged as a distinct people in the 8th century AD when they first converted to Islam.

At the time of the Crusades in the 12th century, Kurds were lauded for their fighting abilities, praised by the Sultan Saladin as great warriors.

It was only when the Ottomans attempted to scatter the Kurds in the 19th century that the Kurds began to ponder the question of creating their own Kurdish state. The 19th century saw the rise of nationalism as a potent political force and at the end of WWI the “right of self-determination” was one of the major points enshrined in international law. The Kurds fought with the British against the crumbling Ottoman Empire at the end of the war and hoped to have their right to self-determination supported.

Kurdish protestors demonstrate against the arrest of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in Istanbul, Turkey in 1999.

At the Versailles peace talks in 1919 the Kurds missed out, while other former Ottoman provinces were granted independence. The 1920 Treaty of Sevres, negotiated between Allied powers and the newly established nation of Turkey, held out the possibility of a Kurdish state but the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 denied it.

Decades of poor treatment at the hands of Turkey followed. Turkey designated Kurds as “Mountain Turks” and outlawed their language. Kurdish rebellion against the Turkification policy resulted in violence and deportations.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1992.

There was renewed hope after WWII when the Soviet Union seemed to take up the Kurdish cause, but The Turkish government tried to dilute the concentration of Kurds by encouraging migration to more urbanised areas, which fragmented the Kurdish separatist movement until several movements came together in the 70s to renew their push for nation status.

In 1978 the Marxist group the PKK emerged, founded by Abdullah Ocalan, with members drawn largely from the lower classes. The PKK were set on a course of using violence to achieve their ends. But their heavy-handed methods, along with Ocalan’s links with Syria, did little to bring sympathy in Turkey. A military coup in 1980 saw the suspension of the Turkish constitution, giving the government a free hand to deal with the PKK, who then set up bases in Kurdish areas of Iraq from where they launched attacks. It resulted in a cycle of PKK attacks and government reprisals.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdulah Ocalan sits behind bulletproof and bombproof glass during his trial in 1999.

Eastern Turkey became a war zone, with thousands of civilians displaced and many Kurdish villages wiped off the map. In 1999 Ocalan was captured, ending a brief period of ceasefire between the PKK and Turkish government. Initially Ocalan was sentenced to death but Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002 and his sentence was commuted to life in prison. While in jail Ocalan began to abandon his violent philosophy and advocate a more peaceful path. The PKK toned down their activities for a time but renewed hostilities in 2004.

After negotiations between Ocalan and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a ceasefire was called in 2013. That peace was shattered late last year after accusations the Turkish government had failed to stop Islamic State militants attacking Kurdish strongholds and was building its military presence in Kurdish regions in Turkey.