PKK General Says Kurdish Militants are Ready for War or Peace: An Exclusive Interview with Murat Karayilan
Murat Karayilan is the acting commander of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan - PKK) and chairman of the executive council of the Kurdish Democratic Confederation (Koma Civaken Kurdistan - KCK). Karayilan, whose surname means “black snake,” joined the PKK in 1979, just a year before the 1980 Turkish military coup. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States and Turkey. In an August 11 interview with Karayilan in a PKK camp located in the mountains of northern Iraq, Karayilan said that he would like to return to his home country. “But I am not dreaming about this, I am a realist.”
