Maoist insurgency in Turkey

Maoist Insurgency in Turkey
Date 12 September 1980s-present (36 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 4 days) Location Turkey, mainly in the east Tunceli region Result Ongoing low level insurgency
Belligerents
Turkey	TKP/ML-TİKKO MKP-HKO-PHG MLKP Maoist Party Centre THKP-C (Dissolved) THKO (Dissolved)
Commanders and leaders
	İbrahim Kaypakkaya † Süleyman Cihan † Kazım Çelik † Mehmet Demirdağ † Cüneyt Kahraman † Cafer Cangöz † Mahir Çayan † Ulaş Bardakçı † Cihan Alptekin † Omer Ayna † Deniz Gezmiş  Yusuf Aslan  Hüseyin İnan  Sinan Cemgi † Kadir Manga † Alpaslan Özdoğan †
Casualties and losses
	600+ killed

Maoist Insurgency in Turkey, also known as People's War in Turkey (Turkish: Halk savaşı), is a low level insurgency occurring in eastern Turkey between the Turkish government and Maoist rebels that appears to have begun in the 1980s. The insurgency declined in the late 1980s and 1990s and has been sidelined by the larger Kurdish separatist conflict. Low level armed attacks continue to be carried out by insurgent groups. The most significant of which are Liberation Army of the Workers and Peasants of Turkey (TİKKO) - armed wing of Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist and People's Liberation Army (HKO) and People's Partisan Forces (PHG), both armed wings of the Maoist Communist Party.

On April 24, 1972, the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist (sometimes TKP/ML is incorrectly referred to as "Partizan" after the name of one of its publications) was formed by a radical group led by İbrahim Kaypakkaya, it crafted 11-point program and intended to wage a People's War. However a year later Kaypakkaya was captured, tortured and killed. In 1978 the first conference was carried out affirming the TKP/ML's direction towards People's War and guerrilla warfare, however little progress was made in this direction. TKP/ML was involved in political violence between left and right wing groups in the 70s.

TKP/ML's military wing, the Liberation Army of the Workers and Peasants of Turkey (TiKKO), carried out militant and guerrilla actions in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, mainly in the Tunceli region, who's inhabitants saw the Maoist guerrilla war as revenge for the Dersim Massacre in 1938. TiKKO reached its height during this period carrying out guerrilla warfare in the mountainous areas of the Dersim and Black Sea regions.

In the late 1980s the TKP/ML suffered from a series of splits following the party's second congress. 1993 TKP/ML attempted to reunifiy with the DABK group which ultimately proved unsuccessful.

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Wikipedia