Who are Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels?
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been a thorn in Turkey's side for decades. The group, which has Marxist-Leninist roots, was formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey. Fighting flared up again after a two-year-old ceasefire ended in July 2015. Now the PKK is being targeted in a bigger Turkish security crackdown, following the botched July 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by mutinous Turkish officers. The PKK's struggle is also part of the turmoil in Iraq and Syria, where Turkey is trying to assert its influence on a battlefield with many rival forces. What are the PKK's ambitions in Turkey? In a BBC interview in April the PKK's military leader Cemil Bayik said "we don't want to separate from Turkey and set up a state". "We want to live within the borders of Turkey on our own land freely...