The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK [9]) held its 12th Congress between May 5 and 7, where delegates voted to dissolve the group's organizational structure and end the armed struggle against the Turkish state that it has waged since 1984. The congress was convened in response to the "Call for Peace and a Democratic Society [10]" issued in February by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan ("Apo"), who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999. The statement called for his followers to lay down arms and pursue a civil struggle for Kurdish rights. The 232 delegates at the 12th Congress held a collective oath-taking ceremony in which they pledged to "intensify the struggle for the freedom of the Kurdish people," and to "fight against the male-dominated civilization and the statist system" and for "a democratic society based on the Apoist line."
The 12th Congress was held in the Medya Defense Zones, a PKK-controlled area of the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq. Turkey continued to carry our air-strikes on the Medya Defense Zones right up to the very eve of the congress, and even in the days after it concluded. Turkey has also continued its campaign of air-strikes [11] on the Rojava region of northern Syria, where PKK-aligned Kurdish forces have established an autonomous zone [12]. (ANF [14], ANF [15], ANF [16], ANHA [17], Abolition Media [18])
