The PKK (Partiya Karkarên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers Party) is a transnational Kurdish movement led by Abdullah Öcalan that seeks an independent Kurdish state (Kurdistan) in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. The PKK dominated Kurdish political discourse in the 1980s and 1990s, and violently targeted the Turkish military and security forces. The heavy handed response of the Turkish state, including indiscriminate violence and the use of torture, triggered a wider popular...