The Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or PKK, Turkish: Kürdistan İşçi Partisi, also called KADEK, Kongra-Gel, and KCK) is a militant group founded in the 1970s and led by Abdullah Öcalan until his capture in 1999. The PKK's ideology was founded on revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Kurdish nationalism. The PKK's goal has been to create an independent socialist Kurdish state in Kurdistan, an area with Kurdish majority population that comprises parts of south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Iraq, north-eastern Syria and north-western Iran. These states oppose Kurdish nationalist movements, often with extreme brutality. PKK is cinsidered by many Tuyrlks to bean ethnic secessionist organization that uses force and the threat of force against both civilian and military targets for the purpose of achieving its political goal.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the USA, NATO and the EU. More than 37,000 people have been killed in the Turkey-PKK conflict since 1984.