The Co-Presidency of the KCK Executive Council released a statement marking the 25th anniversary of the forced departure of PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan from Syria, which marks the beginning of the "international conspiracy" that led to the deportation of the Kurdish leader from Kenya to Turkey on 15 February 1999.

The KCK statement released on Monday includes the following:

“On its 25th anniversary, we once again condemn with all our hatred and anger the international conspiracy of October 9, 1998, which targeted the Kurdish people in the person of Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan]. At the same time, we would like to greet with love Rêber Apo, who responded with great resistance to the conspiracy and the conditions of captivity. Also, facing this dirty conspiracy, we would like to respectfully commemorate the martyrs that lost their lives in the “You cannot darken our sun” campaign. Halit Oral, Selamet Menteş and Aynur Artan, who became a ring of fire in the face of this conspiracy and united around Rêber Apo. We reiterate our promise of loyalty to their memories, and we salute the resistance of our patriotic people and their international friends against the international conspiracy for 25 years and the level of supporting the Leadership.

The strategy of the colonialist Turkish state, which developed its existence based on the destruction and denial of the Kurds, caused the Kurds to be in constant rebellion and resistance throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The greatest rebellion and resistance of the Kurds is the “war of existence and freedom” developed under the leadership of Rêber Apo and our heroic martyrs. The gains in favor of the Kurds in this long process of struggle, which defined itself as the “war of existence and freedom” led by the PKK, were seen as a great threat to the calculations and interests of the international colonialist-capitalist powers in the new century. The international capitalist powers, led by the USA, did not see it in their hegemonic interests to enter the new century with an equal and free Kurdish entity. They saw the PKK-led Free Kurdishness as a major obstacle to their Greater Middle East Project. Therefore, in order to eliminate the obstacle, the international conspiracy of October 9th was processed. The biggest conspiracy of the 20th century was developed and Rêber Apo was forced to leave the Middle East.

The biggest goal of the conspiracy was to prevent the Kurds from entering the 21st century as an equal, free and strong-willed people, as a nation that has achieved its unity and integrity, and thus to reorganize the Middle East on the basis of its own colonial hegemonic interests. The second goal of the conspiracy was to liquidate the Kurdish people and the Kurdish Freedom Movement by cutting off Rêber Apo. Just like in the 20th century, it was their intention to leave the Kurds without identity, status and leadership in the new century. It was to make the Kurdish people lose another century just because it did not submit to the capitalist hegemonic world system and did not give up its will to struggle and surrender in the face of the colonialist genocidal Turkish Republic’s policy of annihilation and denial. The third goal was to drag the Kurdish and Turkish peoples into a great blind war by making them break against each other. To prevent the solution of the so-called ‘Kurdish question’ and the democratization of Turkey.

The stance of our leadership in the face of this imperialist game was based on breaking the tragic fate of genocide that had been determined for the Kurds throughout the 20th century. It was on the basis of frustrating the dirty calculations of the conspiratorial powers on the Kurds and the Middle East. The way both our leadership and the Kurdish People and Movement responded to the development of the conspiracy as an attitude of great resistance and renewal. Thanks to the democratic transformation and the concept of democratic nation developed by Rêber Apo, the Kurdish and Turkish peoples were prevented from being dragged into a blind war against each other and from being at each other’s throats.

Under all the burning reality of the hostage and absolute isolation conditions in Imrali, Rêber Apo responded to the international conspiracy with a great mental revolution and an approach towards a democratic solution. As a revolutionary people’s leader, at times like a philosopher and sage, at other times like a political scientist, like a historical scientist, he has been in the intellectual, mental and physical resistance to change the tragic genocidal fate of his people. He presented the most advanced ideas and thoughts of the age to all peoples, women and all resisting oppressed groups. With the concepts and theories he developed, he created a new paradigm of a free and democratic society. With his theses on free life and free society, he responded to the greatest conspiracy of the age with the greatest defense of the age. His latest five-volume prison writings, the Democratic Civilization was a defense on behalf of all the oppressed, especially Kurds and women. These defenses he presented to the ECHR were a manifesto of free man and free society. The paradigm of a democratic ecological and women’s libertarian society that he developed under the conditions of being a hostage and being under total isolation in Imrali has gained meaning as a new paradigm of life and struggle that will be sufficient to change the fate of all oppressed people in the 21st century. In this respect, the Imrali imprisonment process did not work as the conspiratorial forces intended. On the contrary, it was a process in which the idea of a democratic free society for humanity developed.

This great and historic resistance of Rêber Apo in Imrali constitutes the main center of our struggle against the politics and attacks of genocide. Because the sovereign politics being carried out in Imrali is a politics of isolation and genocide against all Kurds. At this point, the torture of absolute isolation has been imposed on Rêber Apo for twenty-five years. A great political, social, cultural and physical genocide attack is being carried out daily against the people of Kurdistan. All kinds of military attacks against the guerrillas of Kurdistan, aimed at their destruction, continue daily and instantaneously. The geography of Kurdistan is under a great ecocide attack. Despite all these genocidal attacks of the colonialist genocidal Turkish Republic, Rêber Apo’s democratic ideas and thoughts are beginning to flourish as the seed of a new social system in the four parts of Kurdistan and wherever Kurds live. It is turning into a new understanding of life and resistance. Life is beginning to regain its lost meaning. Society is in the process of regaining its lost moral and political character. All oppressed people, Kurds and women alike, are greatly inspired by this development. It is gradually turning into a great social enthusiasm and excitement on a universal scale, a great movement of hope.

The colonialist genocidal Turkish state wants to achieve what it failed to achieve in the past during the international conspiracy process, now through new attack concepts with more diversified extermination. The anti-Kurdish AKP-MHP fascist coalition and the collaborative forces it relies on, taking their international allies with them, aim to renew the conspiracy and surrender the Kurdish people’s will. It re-imposes the old submissive, collaborative, self-denying Kurdishness. It wants to destroy the democratic gains that the Kurds have achieved in recent years with thousands of efforts and by paying invaluable prices, within the framework of the new liquidation and genocide concept it has developed. However, the Kurds have now reached the level of a conscious, honorable, political and organized people who will not kneel or bow down to any sovereign power. In fact, the greatest achievement of the Kurds as a result of fifty years of struggle is this conscious and organized people. Our people, thanks to the politically organized level they have reached, have more than ever the will to succeed in frustrating all impositions of annihilation and genocide.

The gains that have emerged today in favor of the Kurds, in favor of democracy and freedoms are developments that have emerged as a result of Rêber Apo’s deep thought, great foresight, valuable labor and efforts. All the efforts of the colonialist Turkish state and its international supporters are aimed at leaving the Kurds without leadership again in the 21st century. Being without the leadership is one of the main reasons for the Kurds to remain without freedom for a hundred years. This is why Rêber Apo is nailed to the Imrali Cross. That is why, as the Kurdish gains grow, the Imrali torture system is deepened. Isolation is aggravated even more. Because the gains that grow day by day in favor of the Kurds, in favor of democracy and freedoms, are seen as a crime by the colonialist Turkish Republic and Rêber Apo is held responsible for this. It is as if they are saying “why did you awaken this people from slavery, why did you give them spirit, why did you bring them back to existence, why did you raise them up”. For this, our leadership is punished with additional penalties.

Along with Rêber Apo, the Kurdish people have also been imprisoned in the Imrali coffin. However, at the current stage, the Kurdish people are in the process of defeating the international conspiracy and ending the Imrali imprisonment. Rêber Apo and the Kurdish people are an inseparable whole. This is precisely why our people say “No life without the Leader” every day in the streets and squares. Because our people’s devotion to Rêber Apo is a devotion that is kneaded with both consciousness and love and faith. It has to be known that no power can come between Rêber Apo and our people. On this basis, from the first day of the international conspiracy to the present day, our people have been constantly on their feet and in action in order to prevent and frustrate the conspiracy from achieving results at every stage so far. Because the health, safety and physical freedom of Rêber Apo means the future of the Kurdish people, and the Kurdish people have now gained the will to claim their future. Our people, together with their international friends, have put the freedom of Rêber Apo on their agenda and carry out the struggle for this on a daily basis wherever they are, with the campaigns they develop, in various ways and methods. We salute this organized, combative and activist stance of our people and their international friends.

The Freedom Guerrilla of Kurdistan, taking its basis for ideological, philosophical and organizational inspiration from Rêber Apo, has been the main force that prevented the international conspiracy from achieving its goals in the past twenty-five years thanks to its determined struggle and sharp will. It has an unbreakable bond with Rêber Apo. Thanks to this strength, morale and consciousness it receives from Rêber Apo, the Freedom Guerrilla continues to show its will to resist under all circumstances. The colonialist genocidal Turkish occupation army is currently using inhuman ways and methods against the guerrilla in an unprecedented way. It is using all of NATO’s war capabilities against our guerrilla forces in a very brutal way. It is now using chemical and poisonous gases against our guerrilla forces, which it could not deter with the latest NATO technology. Seeing that chemical and poisonous gases have not achieved results and that the unprecedented resistance continues, it has now added tactical nuclear weapons and thermobaric weapons on top of them. All these inhumane ways and methods used by the colonialist Turkish army against the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla are all war crimes. They are crimes against humanity. This must be recognized by the relevant international institutions and the criminals must be tried. Because the Freedom Guerrilla has defended and will continue to defend not only Kurds and Kurdistan, but also all other brotherly peoples living in the region in the person of the Kurdish people and the values of democracy and freedom of the progressive humanity of the world. On this occasion, we once again salute the historic resistance of the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla under the current difficult conditions.

The international friends of the Kurdish people have multiplied even more in the twenty-five years since the international conspiracy. Valuable friendships have been developed with the peoples of the Middle East, Europe and all over the world. Because the peace and brotherhood relationship that Rêber Apo wanted to develop between peoples, beliefs and cultures started to produce new values for progressive humanity, democracy and freedom. On the 25th anniversary of the international conspiracy, we call on all international friends to gather and to form the democratic unity of the peoples, to protest the conspiracy more strongly, and to scream “STOP” against the AKP-MHP fascist regime, which is the enemy of Kurds and at the same time the enemy of democracy and freedoms, and the absolute isolation concept it is implementing.

The process we are going through represents a turning point for our people and our struggle. It has a quality that will open the door to a new democratic era. In such a process, as the Kurdish people, movement and international friends, we are on the verge of a historic level of development in favor of democracy and freedom, in favor of the peoples and progressive humanity, defeating the international conspiracy and bringing the Kurdish struggle for existence and freedom to victory. More than ever, we have the ambition and determination to put this into practice. We are entering the 26th year of resistance against the international conspiracy with this fundamental goal and will and determination. In order to stop the genocide attacks centered on Imrali and to ensure the physical freedom of Rêber Apo, we call on our people living in all parts of Kurdistan, especially in North Kurdistan and abroad, under the leadership of women and youth, together with their dear international friends, to increase the resistance and raise the struggle until the international conspiracy is defeated in its 26th year.”