In a written statement made on the occasion of the anniversary of the Kızıldere Massacre, the PKK Executive Committee stated the following:

“We commemorate with gratitude and respect Mahir Çayan and his 9 friends who fell as martyrs as a result of the attack by the military forces of the military fascist junta in the Kızıldere village of Niksar district of Tokat on 30 March 1972. Their struggles will definitely be crowned with their aspirations: a Democratic Turkey and Free Kurdistan.

Mahir Çayan and his friends wanted to prevent the executions of Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin Inan and Yusuf Aslan with their action. These actions should be seen as a historical attitude to how the relationship and solidarity between revolutionary organizations should be. In particular, this attitude is a call for the joint struggle of all revolutionary democratic forces in the struggle against AKP-MHP fascism.

When the 10 revolutionaries fell on 30 March 1972, a school boycott was carried out at the Faculty of Political Sciences, where Mahir Çayan was a student. Rêber Apo [Abullah Öcalan], who was in his first year at the Ankara Faculty of Political Sciences at that time, led this boycott. Rêber Apo was arrested as the leader and organizer of the boycott to protest the attack of the fascist forces in Kızıldere. As a first-year university student, he fulfilled his revolutionary responsibility with great determination. Since then, Rêber Apo has acted with the great responsibility he feels for the peoples and the oppressed in every second of his life.

Rêber Apo was impressed and inspired by the thoughts of Mahir Çayan, who said, ‘There is a Kurdish problem in Turkey and this problem must be resolved,’ in his speech at a seminar. By leading the boycott, he fulfilled his responsibility to protect such a great revolutionary. When Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin Inan and Yusuf Aslan were sentenced to death in Mamak prison, where he was imprisoned for 7 months, he promised to develop a revolutionary struggle as a requirement of loyalty to the memory of these revolutionaries. Since then, Rêber Apo keeps the longings of Mahir, Deniz and Ibrahim alive in the struggle he wages. The struggle for Free Kurdistan, Democratic Turkey and the Democratic Middle East led by the PKK is also the struggle of these revolutionaries.

Keeping the memory of Mahir Çayan and his 9 friends alive in the most accurate and powerful way is possible by uniting the struggle of the Kurdish people and the peoples of Turkey. In the 2022 Newroz, the Kurdish people and Turkey's revolutionary democratic forces stood shoulder to shoulder in the squares. They have demonstrated their will to overthrow the AKP-MHP fascism. We believe that this will and a joint struggle will become stronger on May 1st. On this basis, we call on all the peoples of Turkey to increase the struggle against AKP-MHP fascism in order to realize the aspirations of the 30 March Kızıldere martyrs and all the revolution martyrs.”