Abdullah Öcalan in the context of Jineology

Turkey–Syria relations are the relations between the Republic of Türkiye and the Syrian Arab Republic. Turkey shares its longest common border with Syria; various geographic and historical links also tie the two neighbouring countries together.

The traditionally tense relations between Turkey and Syria had been due to disputes including the self annexation of the Hatay Province to Turkey in 1939, water disputes resulting from the Southeastern Anatolia Project, and Syria's support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (abbreviated as PKK) and the now-dissolved Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (abbreviated as ASALA) which has been recognised as a terrorist organisation by NATO, the EU, and many other countries. Relations improved greatly after October 1998, when PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was expelled by the Syrian authorities. However, the Syrian civil war once again strained relations between the two countries, leading to the suspension of diplomatic contact. A serious incident occurred with the Syrian downing of a Turkish military training flight in June 2012, resulting in Turkey calling an emergency meeting of NATO.

Democratic confederalism (Kurdish: Konfederalîzma demokratîk), also known as Kurdish communalism, Öcalanism, or Apoism, is a political concept theorized by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan about a system of democratic self-organization with the features of a confederation based on the principles of autonomy, direct democracy, political ecology, feminism ("Jineology"), multiculturalism, self-defense, self-governance and elements of a cooperative economy. Influenced by social ecology, libertarian municipalism, Middle Eastern history and general state theory [de], Öcalan presents the concept as a political solution to Kurdish national aspirations, as well as other fundamental problems in countries in the region deeply rooted in class society, and as a route to freedom and democratization for people around the world.

Although the liberation struggle of the PKK was originally guided by the prospect of creating a Kurdish nation state on a Marxist–Leninist basis, Öcalan became disillusioned with the nation-state model and state socialism. Influenced by ideas from Western thinkers such as the libertarian municipalist and former anarchist Murray Bookchin, Öcalan reformulated the political objectives of the Kurdish liberation movement, abandoning the old statist and centralizing socialist project for a radical and renewed proposal for a form of libertarian socialism that no longer aims at building an independent state separate from Turkey, but at establishing an autonomous, democratic and decentralized entity based on the ideas of democratic confederalism.

The Kurdistan Communities Union (Kurdish: Koma Civakên Kurdistanê, KCK) is a Kurdish political organization committed to implementing Abdullah Öcalan's ideology of democratic confederalism. The KCK also serves as an umbrella group for several confederalist political parties of Kurdistan, including the Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Democratic Union Party (PYD), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), and Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PÇDK).Finland and Sweden's alleged support for the KCK, is one of the points which caused Turkey to oppose Finland and Sweden's NATO accession bid.