decades under Ataturk’s edicts, Turkey barred public use of the Kurdish language. A
rebellion by a radical Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK),
raged from 1984 until 1999 and resulted in thousands of deaths. The rebellion sput-
tered in 1999 after Turkey captured and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan,
but several thousand PKK loyalists remain in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, pos-
ing what Turkish officials say is a serious threat.
Turkey’s ability to deal with the Kurdish issue and the other questions posed by
its history and its location at the intersection of Europe and the Middle East will deter-
mine its success in becoming the modern state that Ataturk envisioned three genera-
tions ago.
630 TURKEY