The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla group primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria. It was founded in Ziyaret, Lice, on 27 November 1978 and was involved in asymmetric warfare in the Kurdistan Workers' Party insurgency (with several ceasefires between 1993 and 2013–2015). Although the PKK initially sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s, its official platform changed to seeking autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey.
The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Japan. Some analysts and organizations disagree with this designation, believing that the PKK no longer engages in organized terrorist activities or systemically targets civilians. Turkey has often characterized the demand for education in Kurdish as supporting terrorist activities by the PKK.