Decades of Resistance: The Turkish-Kurdish Relationship
August 10, 1920: A Kurdish state: At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Sevres proposes the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish state.
July 24, 1923: Turkey overrides Kurdish statehood: Under the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey is declared an independent state and plans for an autonomous Kurdish state are abandoned.
February 1, 1925: Rebellions begin: Thousands of Kurds stage their first uprising against the Turkish government — a move quickly suppressed. The rebellions start with February's revolt of Sheikh Said, who is hanged a few months later.
1936-1939: The Turkish government killed 13,806 people in the southeastern city of Tunceli, then known as Dersim.
October 27, 1978: The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, is formed. Abdullah Ocalan is selected as the founding leader of the organization.
1984: Kurdish rebels begin an armed struggle against Turkey, resisting Turkification and seeking autonomy in the country's largely Kurdish southeast.
March 1, 1993: The PKK drops its declared objective of creating an independent state of Kurdistan in the southeastern provinces of Turkey.
June 12, 2011: Election of first pro-Kurdish political party, the Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP.
October 19, 2011: Turkey launches an air and ground offensive against Kurdish militants in Turkey and in northern Iraq after a series of coordinated attacks by the PKK killed 24 soldiers — the worst loss of life for the Turkish army since 1993.
November 23, 2011: Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issues the Turkish government's first official apology for the killings of 13,806 people during a bombing campaign to crush a Kurdish rebellion between 1936 and 1939.
