Turkey's Military Victory over the PKK and Its Failure to End the PKK Insurgency

Ontological Insecurity, Anxiety, and Hubris: An Affective Account of Turkey-KRG Relations

“…These developments turned northern Iraq into "a major living space and military base for the PKK" and strengthened American-Kurdish cooperation. 40 Beginning in the 1990s, the Turkish narrative presented the Iraqi Kurds as the 'Other' who tolerated the presence of an enemy, the terrorist group PKK, within areas under their control in northern Iraq, thereby threatening not only Turkey's physical security but also its identity and ontological security. Reflecting Turkey's deeply rooted ontological insecurities, Turkish officials refrained from recognizing the Iraqi Kurds as a separate interlocutor in Iraq in the early 2000s.…”

Insisting on victory

“…However, the central theme of Turkey's countermeasures has been around seeking a decisive unilateral military victory in pursuit of PKK's demise (Ünal, 2012a, 2016a). In fact, the Turkish Army defeated the PKK (Kayhan-Pusane, 2015) in the military sense after its first-decade insurrection in 1993/94. As explained later, the PKK's founding leader, Abdullah Öcalan, acknowledged the PKK's military defeat in a direct challenge of Turkish state and authority.…”

“…Despite the high death toll, the PKK has been resilient. It has managed to survive by changing its political strategies and adapting to the shifting socio-political and security environment despite Turkey's efforts to psychically eradicate it (Gürcan & Ünal, 2018;Kayhan-Pusane, 2015;Ünal, 2014;2012a, 2016a. This strategic interaction has yielded many learning opportunities.…”