Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council member Mustafa Karasu wrote an article for Yeni Özgur Politika newspaper on the first PKK actions against the Turkish army on August 15, 1984.

Highlights from Karasu's article are as follows:

"On the 34th anniversary of the August 15, 1984 guerilla operation, I salute all our martyrs with respect and gratitude in the person of the great commander Mahsum Korkmaz.

The August 15 operation has changed the destiny of not just the people of Kurdistan, but the peoples of the Middle East. The August 15 guerilla operation has shaped the social and political history of not just Bakure (Northern) Kurdistan, but Kurdistan as a whole. It has left its mark on the political history not just Turkey, but the whole of the Middle East, and kickstarted important changes. Just asking the question, what would the situation in Kurdistan, Turkey and the Middle East would be if the August 15 guerilla operation and the developments in Bakure Kurdistan never happened would be enough to understand what August 15 created and helped emerge.

August 15 broke the regressive shell over Kurdistan and the Middle East and brought to the fore the historical, societal and cultural values of the Middle East in the person of the Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Kurdish people. Undoubtedly there have been other political movements and revolutionary struggles in the Middle East, but none of them have created outcomes as extensive as to affect all peoples.

The August 15 guerilla operation has also been a cultural revolution. It has broken many regressive aspects and created many new and beautiful values. It has created new criteria for rejection and acceptance, and new criteria for acclaim on the basis of uplifting the criteria of democracy and freedom. Perhaps no military movement or guerrilla struggle in history has created so many new criteria and acclaim as in Kurdistan and the Middle East.

Leader Apo has considered the guerrilla to be a source of new life since the start. He aimed to create a new society, starting from the guerrilla itself. In this sense, he has considered the guerrilla as a prototype of the new life, and strived to make it into a source of life with high criteria from education to living, from the style of the struggle to its relationship with the people. He has rejected approaches that consider the guerrilla just as a military phenomenon or individuals. He has considered the guerrilla to be the organizational and societal foundation to create the democratic society and the free individual.

The Kurdish Freedom Movement that developed under the lead of the PKK on the basis of the August 15 operation has defeated the Turkish state in the ideological, political and societal aspects. The genocidal colonialism has been wholly exposed and suffered an ideological defeat against the line of freedom and democracy. It has been defeated politically. The genocidal colonialist system has ceased to be sustainable. The democratization of Turkey and the solution of the Kurdish issue is the only political way out in Turkey. Turkey has lost the Kurdish society. It is not possible to sustain a system, which is defeated in the ideological, political and societal aspects, only through military force or other resources. The ideologically, politically and socially defeated colonialism will fail militarily as well, and this will result in the democratization of Turkey and liberation of Kurdistan. The 35th year of struggle for the guerrilla will create such historic outcomes."