Kurdish crisis in Turkey: From the lens of history
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ANKARA: (APP) Here is a chronology of events in Turkey's Kurdish crisis, which has claimed more than more than 40,000 people since 1984.
1920: The Treaty of Sevres, signed between the Ottoman Empire and Allied forces, envisages the creation of a Kurdish state. Plan is scrapped after Turks win "Independence War".
1923: The Treaty of Lausanne establishes the boundaries of Turkey. Ethnic Kurdish areas are spread across several nations.
1920-1937: Several Kurdish rebellions for independence are subdued by force, resulting in the deaths of thousands.
1978: Abdullah Ocalan founds the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for an independent Kurdish state.
1984: The PKK takes up arms against Ankara, waging a war in the Kurdish-majority southeast and larger Anatolia region.
1991: The Gulf War paves the way to de facto autonomy for Kurds in northern Iraq. Attacks inside Turkey launched from the other side of the shared border increase.
1992: The Turkish army mounts a vast air and land operation against bases of the PKK in northern Iraq.
1995: A Turkish incursion inside Iraq involves 36,000 troops. Army crackdowns increase in southeastern Turkey, and two to three million people flee their homes.
1999: Ocalan is captured in Kenya and sentenced to death for treason. The sentence is commuted to life in prison in 2002.
2009: The Turkish government announces a "Kurdish initiative" to increase rights for the minority, triggering a nationalist backlash. The dialogue ends a year later.
2011: After then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pays a landmark trip to Iraqi Kurdistan in April, 24 Turkish soldiers are killed in October in one of the deadliest Kurdish attacks in years.
Meanwhile Kurdish parties make gains in legislative elections. Secret talks held in Norway between Turkey's intelligence agency and senior PKK officials break down.
2012: Hundreds of Kurdish prisoners launch a hunger strike in September, demanding language rights and better conditions for Ocalan. In December, officials acknowlege having resumed talks with Ocalan.
2013: Ocalan calls for a ceasefire in March, telling fighters to lay down their arms. Erdogan and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani make a joint call for peace in November, but fresh clashes nonetheless erupt a month later.
2014: In August, Ocalan foresees the end of the conflict, but fighting in neighbouring Syria disrupts the peace process and in October, 34 people die amid rioting by Kurdish youths.
2015: The fragile truce is ripped apart by an anti-Kurd attack that kills 34 people in Suruc on the Syrian border. It is blamed on jihadist groups.
Turkish warplanes strike Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, and a large-scale assault is launched within Turkey itself. PKK youths stage an "urban uprising" and terror attacks hit Ankara and Istanbul.
2016: Turkey sends troops into northern Syria in August in a bid to stop Syrian Kurdish militia, whom Ankara views as linked to the PKK, from creating an autonomous Kurdish "canton" on its southern border.
In November, Turkish police arrest the co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) as part of a terror probe.
