*** Welcome to piglix ***

Kurdistan Free Life Party

Kurdistan Free Life Party
Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê (PJAK)
پارتی ژیانی ئازادی کوردستان
Leader Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi and Evindar Renas
Founded 2004
Armed wing Eastern Kurdistan Defense Units (YRK)
Women's wing Women's Defence Forces (HPJ)
Ideology Kurdish nationalism
Democratic Confederalism
Democratic socialism
Libertarian socialism
Political position Left-wing
International affiliation Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK)
Eastern Kurdistan Defense Units
Yekîneyên Parastina Rojhilatê Kurdistan (YRK)
Leader(s) Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi
Dates of operation 2004–2011
Motives To establish semiautonomous regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, Turkey and Syria similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government, and establish a democratic confederalism as theorised by Abdullah Öcalan.
Active region(s) Iraq, Turkey and Iran
Ideology Secularism,
Kurdish nationalism
Feminism,
Democratic confederalism
Status Active

The Kurdistan Free Life Party or PJAK (Kurdish: Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê‎) is a Kurdish political and militant organisation which has waged an intermittent armed struggle since 2004 against the Iranian government to seek self-determination for Kurds in Iran and Eastern Kurdistan.

Some experts describe PJAK as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Both groups are members of the Kurdistan Communities Union or KCK (Kurdish: Koma Civakên Kurdistan‎), an umbrella group of Kurdish political and insurgent groups in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq.

The membership of PJAK's armed wing, the Eastern Kurdistan Defense Units or YRK, is estimated to be 3,000 and come from Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the Kurdish diaspora. The group is considered a banned terrorist organisation by Iran,Turkey, and the United States, but not by the EU, UN and Russia.

The exact history of PJAK is widely disputed. Turkey and Iran claim that PJAK is nothing more than an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). According to some sources, members of the PKK founded the PJAK in 2004 as an Iranian equivalent to their leftist-nationalist insurgency against the Turkish government.


...
Wikipedia

...