The Co-Presidency of the KCK Executive Council issued a statement to mark the anniversary of the founding of the PKK.
The statement said: "With the emergence of the PKK, the era of genocidal, colonialist, and slavish history in Kurdistan has ended, and a new historical period based on freedom has begun. We salute this meaningful development with our most revolutionary feelings and congratulate Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan], the martyrs, the patriotic people of Kurdistan, the freedom guerrilla of Kurdistan, all PKK and PAJK militants, the comrades resisting in prison, all the women and youth, the peoples of the Middle East and the world, the revolutionary, democratic, socialist world, and progressive humanity struggling for equality, freedom, and democracy. While celebrating this meaningful development, we also commemorate the martyrs of the revolution and the struggle for democracy, the ones who enabled all the developments, with gratitude, offer our respect, love, and longing, and bow respectfully before their precious memories. We reiterate our pledge of loyalty and victory to the martyrs and state that we will realize their aspirations."
The statement added: "The struggle led by the PKK not only realized the resurrection of the Kurdish people, but also shook the foundations of the established order in the Middle East. At the beginning of the 20th century, the powers of capitalist modernity developed a new design of a nation-states system in the Middle East on the basis of their interests. While the resources of the Middle East were stolen and exploited through dependent nation-states, the peoples were taken into a colonialist, genocidal, racist, and fascist grip by the same nation states, deprived of their freedom on the one hand and made enemies of each other on the other.
The Kurdish people have been the most prominent of the peoples who have been completely deprived of their freedom, divided and fragmented, and taken into a process of denial and extinction. The treatment of the Kurdish people by the forces of capitalist modernity and the genocidal colonialist fascist nation-state forces has been the most unjust, cruel, and despicable treatment in human history. The Kurdish people have not only been taken into the process of division and disintegration together with their country, but their existence has been denied and deemed null and void. Its justified objections against this have always been suppressed by the joint attack of all these forces. However, this order, which was created and protected by the capitalist world system, entered a period of crisis, chaos, and blockage with the PKK-led struggle. Today’s crisis in the Middle East based on the nation state mentality is essentially the result of the struggle led by the PKK."
The statement continued: "Undoubtedly, when it comes to the meaning and legacy of the PKK, its greatest contribution to humanity is the alternative system of free life developed by Rêber Apo. By developing the paradigm of a society based on grassroots democracy, social ecology, and women’s liberation against capitalist modernity’s domination and exploitation of the individual, society, and nature, by developing the democratic nation project to solve the problems that have become a deadlock in the Middle East, and by developing the democratic confederalism system that will save the world, Rêber Apo has proved that he has the most serious solution to overcome the problems of our time. The fact that his ideas are being embraced more and more around the whole world and that solidarity with the Kurdish people is developing more and more all over the world is the result of this. The global freedom campaign expresses this through organization and action. We can easily state that the PKK is a movement that has succeeded not only in putting the genocidal, exploitative, male-dominated mentality and politics of capitalist modernity into crisis but also in developing a solution model that will liberate the individual, society, nature, and women. In this respect, the PKK’s emergence is historical, strategic, ideological, and political."
The statement underlined that "one of the fundamental principles that constitute the essence of the PKK is undoubtedly the value it attributes to women and women’s freedom. By giving women the leading role within the PKK, Rêber Apo brought about a crucial historical difference, and historical developments were caused through this. Today, this fundamental principle of the PKK guides the women of Kurdistan, the Middle East and the world with the slogan ‘Jin Jiyan Azadi’.
As a result, how and on what foundations the PKK emerged on the stage of history, on what dynamics of struggle it is based, how it has led to so many developments, and how it has survived and continued to create developments despite all the regional and international attacks is one of the most pressing issues that must be emphasized and understood. The PKK is a phenomenon that needs to be the subject of the most scientific research.
Once again, we congratulate the founding of our party, the PKK, to all peoples, especially the Kurdish people, women, our international friends and all the oppressed. In the PKK’s 47th year of struggle, we wish everyone who struggles for an equal and free world great success. We express our greetings and love, and call on everyone to increase the struggle within the scope of the global freedom campaign, to work and struggle more for the construction of the free individual and democratic commune life."