SUMMARY
Turkey (Türkiye) has faced major internal strife, mainly from the separatist conflict against PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) in the country's south-east. It has fought against groups attempting to overthrow its government, which historically have been leftist and Kurdish groups, but notably a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces attempted a coup in 2016. Turkey also intervened in the Syrian civil war against IS (Islamic State) in 2014, to eventually invade Northern Syria in 2016-2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Since 1989, Turkey has experienced the interstate, non-state and one-sided categories of organized violence, as defined by UCDP.
2025
The year 2025 marked a turning point in Turkey's longest-running conflict, as the PKK moved to end its four-decade armed struggle against the Government of Turkey. After an overture from the government's nationalist allies in late 2024, the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan called on the group to lay down its arms and dissolve in February 2025. The PKK declared a ceasefire on 1 March, announced at a congress in May that it would dissolve and end its armed struggle, held a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq in July at which a first group of fighters burned their weapons, and in October announced the withdrawal of its forces from Turkish territory.
Reflecting this process, organized violence fell sharply. Virtually all state-based violence in 2025 stemmed from the conflict between the Government of Turkey and the PKK, and almost all of the limited fighting occurred in northern Iraq, in the form of Turkish strikes on PKK positions before the ceasefire took hold, rather than inside Turkey. Estimated fatalities from the Turkey: Kurdistan conflict fell to their lowest level since the collapse of the previous peace process in 2015. A smaller amount of state-based violence involved IS, which clashed with security forces in Yalova at the end of the year and was blamed for a deadly attack on a police station in İzmir in September, while the authorities carried out repeated mass arrests of IS suspects. No non-state violence was recorded, and the only one-sided violence in the country was an isolated killing in Istanbul attributed to the Iranian government.
Turkish intervention in Syria
The decision of Turkey to invade Northern Syria begins with the conflict between Government of Turkey – IS. It was triggered by Turkey joining the coalition led by United States of America to fight IS. In 2014 the coalition forces managed to stop the advance of IS in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. In response, IS shifted its attacks to the Kurdish town of Kobane in Syria and was finally forced to retreat by the Kurds, with help from US airstrikes, after suffering heavy losses. In 2015 IS announced the “conquest of Istanbul”, which initiated the conflict with the Government of Turkey. In both 2015 and 2016 there were deadly IS suicide attacks in Turkey leading to the death of more than 100 civilians. Most of the events and deaths in 2016 and 2017 have been connected to the Turkish military intervention referred to as “Operation Euphrates Shield”, launched in northern Syria 24 August 2016 to drive IS and partially Kurdish coalition SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) away from the Turkish-Syrian border. The conflict between the Government of Turkey – IS reached the intensity level of war in 2016. In February 2017 the Turkish forces and their rebel allies almost completely controlled the Syrian city Al-Bab and IS withdrew, and Operation Euphrates Shield was announced complete on 29 March 2017. The subsequent military operations conducted by Turkey in Northern Syria have been exclusively targeted towards the SDF, whose Kurdish militias Turkey claims to be a wing of PKK.
In addition to Syria, Turkey has been involved in more conflicts outside of its own territory. It took part in the NATO military operation against the Government of Yugoslavia (Serbia) in Kosovo in 1999. Moreover, Turkey sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001 to back the UIFSA in the conflict with the government and later to support the United States of America against al-Qaida.
Kurdish independence and internal unrest
The Turkey: Kurdistan conflict is responsible for the vast majority of organized violence in Turkey. In 1984, the PKK instigated an armed struggle against the Government of Turkey with the goal of establishing an independent socialist Kurdish state. After more than a decade of conflict, PKK’s leader Abdullah Öcalan limited the group's goals to autonomy for the Kurdish minority in Turkey in 1999. The conflict was most violent during the 1990s, which coincided with widespread use of one-sided violence by PKK. The Government of Turkey has rejected negotiations with PKK, which it has labeled a terrorist organization. In 2012, however, peace talks were initiated. The fragile ceasefire 2013-2014 managed to keep violence relatively low, but was abandoned in 2015. Tensions had been building with PKK blaming the Government of Turkey for not preventing IS attacks on Kurds in Turkey. In July 2015 an IS suicide bomb in Suruc killed 33 – mainly Kurdish – civilians. The Turkey: Kurdistan conflict then quickly escalated to a level not seen since the 1990s and in 2016 it reached the intensity level of war. Most incidents were governmental airstrikes targeting the PKK in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern parts of Turkey and in northern Iraq.
Turkey has also faced groups challenging government power to change its political system. DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front) in the early 90s and MKP (Maoist Communist Party) in 2005 were two leftist groups which struggled for a change in government and social systems. In the early 2000s TAK (Kurdistan Freedom Falcons) emerged, following the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and violently opposing the Turkish government’s treatment of the ethnic Kurds in the southeast of the country. TAK has targeted tourist areas and government posts in urban areas. In 2016 the conflict between the Government of Turkey – TAK became active for the first time due to two deadly bombings targeting government posts in Ankara and Istanbul, respectively. In the late evening of 15 July 2016, units from the Turkish Armed Forces operating under the name Yurtta Sulh Konseyi (Peace at Home Council) tried to take control of the government, state institutions, national media and key points of communication in the country. The failed coup attempt led to the death of close to 300 people.
Pre-1989 conflicts
The Government of Turkey provided secondary warring support to the government of South Korea from 1950 to 1953. In 1974 Turkey intervened militarily in neighboring Cyprus, when a coup by nationalist Greeks threatened to result in the unification of Cyprus with neighboring Greece. As a result of the short interstate conflict, the island was de facto divided into a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot sector. Turkey became the patron state for the latter and the only country that recognized the independence of the proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
