The Co-Presidency of the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Executive Council released a statement on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the February 15 international conspiracy against Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan.
The KCK statement on Thursday reads as follows:
“We are approaching the 28th year since the beginning of the international conspiracy against Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, as the anniversary of his abduction is coming up on February 15. We strongly condemn all states and political forces involved in this conspiracy and reiterate that we will continue to fight against it until Leader Öcalan is physically freed. We also remember with gratitude and respect the martyrs who gave their lives in actions following the slogan ‘You Cannot Darken Our Sun!’. They were at the forefront of the struggle against the international conspiracy. Not only did they form the barrier that prevented the conspiracy from achieving its goal, it was also them who laid the foundation for the struggle that is still being waged today. They are the direction and moral values of our struggle.
Leader Öcalan has been extraordinarily focused and diligent in thwarting the conspiracy from the very beginning. He has played his role in thwarting the conspiracy and strengthening our freedom movement even under the conditions of total isolation. He has ensured that our movement and our people wage a stronger struggle. We salute our leader, who has shown great resistance against the conspiracy for 27 years, with respect and love.
The international conspiracy was carried out against Leader Öcalan’s project for a democratic Middle East, which he sought to create at that time based on the freedom of the Kurdish people and the brotherhood of peoples. It was a project against the version of the Middle East that was based on the subjugation and genocide of the Kurds, created by the regional and international powers. They saw their interests in the continuation of such a Middle East. International powers controlled the Middle East through their collaborators. With his paradigm based on the brotherhood of peoples and the solution to the Kurdish question, Leader Öcalan aimed to end this order based on collaboration in the Middle East. The solution to the Kurdish question would pave the way for democratization in the Middle East. Weakening collaborationism and paving the way for democratization meant breaking the hegemonic powers’ hold in the region. It was for this reason that the international powers sought to eliminate Leader Öcalan and the PKK. They saw them as obstacles to their hegemony in the Middle East.
The international conspiracy also targeted the paradigm of women’s freedom, which is the catalyst for the development of democracy and freedom. This is because male-dominated hegemonic powers see the ideology of women’s freedom as a great threat to their own male-dominated systems.
The hegemonic powers planned to achieve these goals by sidelining Leader Öcalan and annihilating the freedom movement. To this end, they involved many countries in this conspiracy in an unprecedented manner and launched an attack against Leader Öcalan that would leave him with no place in this world. The way this conspiracy was carried out also revealed how much they feared Leader Öcalan’s ideas and his ideological and political line. Leader Öcalan was abducted on February 15, 1999, as a result of this conspiracy and was placed in solitary confinement on Imralı Island.
During the development of the conspiracy, which began on October 9, 1998, and continued until Leader Öcalan’s abduction on February 15, 1999, our people rose up everywhere, spearheaded by actions under the slogan ‘You Cannot Darken Our Sun!’. Our people in the four parts of Kurdistan resisted all pressures and barricaded themselves against the international conspiracy. Our people in Europe never sat down; they remained on their feet throughout the conspiracy process and after February 15, playing an important role in creating the spirit of resistance against the conspiracy.
Those who carried out the international conspiracy aimed to neutralize Leader Öcalan by imprisoning him, to liquidate the PKK, and to separate our people from their leader and the PKK. However, with the spirit created under the slogan ‘You Cannot Darken Our Sun,’ the PKK and our people rallied for Leader Öcalan, taking a historic stand against the conspirators. The Kurdish people’s embrace of our leader at this level in the four parts of Kurdistan is unprecedented in history. Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, stated that they did not expect such a reaction, vividly expressing the reality of our people’s embrace of their leader.
Leader Öcalan has demonstrated the greatest example of prison resistance by stating that historical conspiracies do not halt developments under the conditions of captivity on Imrali Island; rather, they accelerate them. Through his 27-year prison resistance, Leader Öcalan has grown stronger and become the leader of freedom for all humanity and women. In these 27 years, Leader Öcalan has strikingly shaped the Kurdish mind. Through his analysis of capitalist modernity and his critique of real socialism, he has gifted humanity with the paradigm of democratic modernity and democratic socialism that will bring about the liberation of all humanity. Thus, he has offered humanity an ideology of liberation in the midst of the severe crises that capitalist modernity has inflicted upon humanity. By championing this ideology of liberation, he has spread his leadership throughout the world. The 21st century will be the century in which humanity achieves democracy and freedom through the ideology of liberation of our leader. The struggle for women’s freedom will also play a pioneering role in the creation of this century.
Today, the conspiracy has been pushed back and largely rendered ineffective, but it has not been completely defeated and ended. Indeed, following the Paris Agreement on January 5, 2026, the attack on the Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah in Aleppo on January 6 was the second international conspiracy. The conspiracy was updated and launched in the same region where the 1998 international conspiracy began. Just as the February 15, 1999, conspiracy was an attack to carry out the genocide of the Kurds in the person of their leader, the attack launched on January 6 was an attack on Leader Öcalan’s paradigm, the democratic system he envisioned, and the gains that had been made. On the other hand, it was also an attack aimed at sabotaging the process of peace and a democratic society. Leader Öcalan aimed to end the endless conflicts in the Middle East with a political and social solution based on the concept of democratic nation in the Middle East, which has been held back and exhausted by ethnic and religious conflicts. Leader Öcalan’s paradigm, albeit imperfect and inadequate, has been put into practice in Rojava and North and East Syria, creating a democratic system that will serve as an example for the entire Middle East. With the support of international powers and the Turkish state, the interim government in Damascus and its affiliated gangs attacked Rojava and North and East Syria, aiming to eliminate the democratic system that would serve as a democratic model for the Middle East based on the concept of democratic nation. Thus, a blow was struck against the democratic system in North and East Syria, and the democratic system based on the democratic nation was pushed back to the borders of Rojava. This conspiracy, which attacks the existence and freedom of the Kurds and aims at their genocide, is an attack on the democratic system that was sought to be established in the Middle East, as it was in 1999. Since the attack on democratization is essentially an attack on the existence and free life of the Kurds, this international conspiracy has also been an attack on the existence of the Kurds and all their gains in the region, as well as on the common values of the peoples.
Just as the Kurdish people rose up in the four parts of Kurdistan and abroad against the international conspiracy when it began on October 9, 1998, recognizing its sinister aims, they have risen up everywhere against this conspiracy, aware that it is an attack on the Kurdish existence and their free and democratic life. It has shown a similar reaction to the 1999 conspiracy in the uprisings to defend Rojava. This defense is also a defense of Leader Öcalan’s paradigm and the free and democratic life of the Kurdish people. It is the taking of responsibility for the gains achieved in the four parts of Kurdistan, created through decades of struggle. Because it was seen that the attack on Rojava was an attack on the entire Kurdish people and their gains. The attack against Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafiyah, Rojava, and North and East Syria has been a conspiracy against the democratization of the Middle East and the freedom of the Kurdish people. We salute our people and the democratic forces in every part of Kurdistan who have risen up against this conspiracy. With the awareness that the conspiracy continues, this support must be sustained, and the aim of the conspiracy must be completely thwarted.
On the 27th anniversary of the international conspiracy, we call on all our people and peoples to rise up with the slogan ‘Freedom for Leader Öcalan, Status for Rojava’; we reiterate our pledge to continue our struggle against the conspiracy to the end and to achieve our goal of freedom for Leader Öcalan and Kurdistan.”
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