1、 https:/crsreports.congress.gov December 5, 2019Turkey, the PKK, and U.S. Involvement: A ChronologyTurkeys decades-long struggle with the Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish acronym PKK) has fostered both cooperation and contention between the United States and Turkey. Since 2015, the United States has
2、 partnered with militias that include the PKK-linked Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (Kurdish acronym YPG) against the Islamic State. Turkish operations in northern Syria against the YPG, including an incursion launched in the fall of 2019, are perhaps the most prominent recent example of ho
3、w the Turkey-PKK conflict can complicate U.S. regional policy and bilateral relations with Turkey. The PKK, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, represents one among many strands of organized political and military activity in the name of Kurdish nationalism. For more information on Kur
4、dish groups in the Middle East, see CRS In Focus IF10350, The Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran, by Jim Zanotti and Clayton Thomas. PKK Origins (1978-1983) The early Turkish Republic (founded in 1923) saw several Kurdish-led rebellions and uprisings, leading the Turkish state to generally repre
