Such a move is “an essential step in bringing peace and democracy to Turkey and the Middle East,” a PKK official told the Morning Star on Friday.
“The PKK is not a terrorist organisation,” he insisted. “We have the right to defend ourselves and the Kurdish people against Turkish fascism and fight for our [Kurds’] right to exist.
“The campaign to delist the PKK is an important one, and we hope that it is successful too.”
Celebrations are to be held in Qandil and across Kurdistan to mark the founding conference of the PKK in 1978, in the village of Fis, south-east Turkey.
In statement, the PKK paid tribute to those who have lost their lives in the Kurdish liberation struggle and wished “success to all those who are fighting for freedom and democracy.”
The resistance movement said that the struggle of the PKK had “guaranteed the existence and freedom of the Kurdish people, and saved humanity from a new genocide.
“Everyone accepts this fact today, except those who are sworn enemies of the Kurds and PKK.”
It paid particular attention to the war being waged by Turkey in Iraqi Kurdistan, where its six-month military operation has failed to make ground.
It accused the United States, Turkey and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of colluding in “a planned all-out attack in order to destroy and liquidate the PKK.”
This has seen a litany of war crimes committed in the region, including the bombing of a hospital and a UN-administered refugee camp, as well as the alleged use of chemical weapons.
But the “heroic resistance” of the guerilla fighters has repelled such attacks and prevented a further massacre of the Kurdish people, the PKK said.
The campaign to delist the PKK was given a boost by news that the US is set to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia from its international terror list.
The PKK was officially designated by the US as a terrorist organisation at the turn of the century — a move seen by the party’s supporters as an opportunistic attempt to appease Turkey as Washington sought to secure global support for its burgeoning “war on terror.”
Turkey and the European Union have also branded it a terrorist organisation. But a landmark ruling by Belgium’s Supreme Court in January 2020 suggested that its application of the label was erroneous, and that it had been done for political reasons.
The judgement, made after years of legal wrangling and objections from Ankara, found that the PKK was a party engaged in a non-international armed conflict, making it subject to the laws of war and not to criminal law.
Speaking on efforts to have the PKK delisted as a terror organisation, lawyer Jan Fermon said: “There is no doubt that the PKK meets all the criteria that allow it to be considered as a political-military organisation which carries out an armed struggle against Turkish security services, army and authorities, towards the realisation of the right to self-determination of the Kurdish people.”
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