Thera- My work in the Qandil mountains in Erbil governorate, Iraq along the border with Iran for the Jamestown Foundation wasd cited in PhD dissertation at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic). Tomáš Kaválek, the Director of Prague Centre for Middle East Relations, wrote his dissertation in 2020 titled “Comparative Analysis of PKK Insurgencies in the Middle East in 2004-18: Examining Conditions for Insurgent Behaviour”
This vast body of work examines the PKK’s insurgent campaigns in Turkey and Iraq, the PYD’s evolution and actions in Syria, and the PJAK’s war in Iran (where my work comes into the picture). The relationship between Kurdish non-state armed groups has been undergoing a seismic shift in recent weeks as the PKK dissolves itself in Turkey as the core component of a lugubrious peace process between Ankara and PKK leader Abdullah ‘Apo’ Ocalan imprisoned on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara since his capture in Kenya in 1999. Concomitantly, General Mazloum Abdi, leader of the SDF in Syira of which the YPG is its core contituent war-fighting group, pledged that his forces would formally disband and reintegrate into post-Assad Syria’s nascent security forces (though the fate of the female YPJ contigent remains entirely uncertain.)
So this looks like the end of the transnational Apoist movements spanning greater Kurdistan , correct? Not so fast. The PJAK has strongly denied it will lay down its arms in its decades-long war against the Iranian state and emphatically stated its decision making which you can read about here: “PJAK asserts independence from PKK, says it will not dissolve.”
