Description:
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is infamous for its violence. The struggle it has waged for Kurdish independence in south-eastern Turkey has cost in excess of 40,000 lives since 1984. Less known, however, is the fact that the PKK now embraces a non-violent end to the conflict, with its leader Abdullah Ocalan having ordered his fighters to ceasefire and engage in a negotiated peace with the Ankara Government. Whether these tentative attempts at peacemaking mean a long-term end to the bloodshed remains to be seen, but either way the ramifications for Turkey and the wider region are potentially huge.
Charting the ideological evolution of the PKK, as well as its origins, aims and organizational setup, Paul White provides the only authoritative and up-to-date analysis of one of the most important non-state political players in the contemporary Middle East.
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Brief description: Dr Paul White works as an independent consultant in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has taught Middle East Politics courses at Deakin University in Melbourne; at Macquarie University in Sydney; and at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. He is the author of Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers? The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey (Zed Books, 2000). He was a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and serves on the board of directors of the Kurdish Institute, Washington DC.
Review Quotes:
"At this most dramatic moment in the history of the Kurdish people, Paul White's timely book offers an indispensable guide to the PKK's organizational and ideological evolution, its years of bitter struggle with the Turkish state, and the prospects for a peaceful outcome." --Bill Park, King's College London
"Turkey's politics and the Kurdistan Workers' Party have all changed a great deal in the last fifteen years, and Paul White elegantly and clearly traces these changes. Of interest to both academics and non-academics, his extremely timely and important book will help readers better understand the current context - and how it came to be." --David Romano, author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement "A timely analysis of the evolution of the Kurdish national movement and the PKK over the last fifteen years, which reveals important insights into the complex history and dynamics of the conflict ... a key resource for anyone seeking an in-depth understanding of the Kurdish Question." --Kerim Yildiz, director of Democratic Progress Institute