The Youth Committee of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) released a statement addressed to the patriotic Kurdish people and the youth of Kurdistan.

"In such a historic process where a war of existence and non-existence is being fought, the youth of Kurdistan have great duties and responsibilities" said the statement and called on the youth of Kurdistan to claim their historical responsibilities, emphasising that "there is no other choice but to fight for a free life".

The PKK Youth Committee remembered Zeynep Kinaci (nom de guerre: Zîlan), one of the most well-known militants of the Kurdish women’s movement. At a time when the Kurdish women’s movement was under massive attack, the then 23-year-old took the initiative and carried out an action in Dersim (tr. Tunceli). She detonated a bomb in a military parade, killing and injuring several soldiers. Zeynep Kinaci also lost her life as a result of the action on June 30, 1996.

“Zilan is our manifesto of freedom. As the Apoist youth movement, we reiterate once again that we will live and fight with Comrade Zilan's stance that creates a line in life and war and that we will win victory,” the statement said.

The PKK Youth Committee pointed out that the stance of the heroic Kurdistan guerrillas, who are rooting out the fascist Turkish gangs in Zap, Avaşin and Metina today, is the expression of devotion to the Leader Abdullah Öcalan, defining him as the greatest devotee of free life. “He devoted his whole life to the Kurdish people and humanity and fought this terrible war 24 hours a day. He knitted free life with great excitement, love and determination to struggle. He is the greatest soul enemy of individualism, the ideology of capitalist modernity. Leader Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] is the expression of sociality from top to bottom. He is the creator and builder of the line of struggle that brought our party into existence and kept it standing firmly against all kinds of destruction and liquidation concepts.”

According to the PKK Youth Committee, Öcalan is kept in the Imrali torture system because imperialism and its collaborating agent henchmen see his ideological reality, the social system he wants to create, the free life he wants to weave with spirituality, as the greatest danger for themselves.

The statement continued: “He has always been in search and struggle for a free and true life. The leader has put a spoke in the wheel of exploitation and slavery that capitalist modernity wants to absolutise as a fate. He has spoilt the enemy's games and dirty plans against the Kurdish people and youth. This is also the reason for the enemy's anger and reckless attack on Leader Apo. In the Imrali coffin, even the breathing of our leader is prevented. It is the Kurdish people and youth, in the person of the leader, who are wanted to be left breathless. The fascist, genocidal Turkish colonialism has built its existence on the destruction of the Kurdish people. It has a fascist mentality that sees the slightest gain on behalf of our people and our struggle as the greatest threat and danger to itself. Having expectations from such a mentality is the same as expecting life from your executioner. This would be self-deception and deception.

Leader Apo, defining his personality as a fighter, said that he would not deceive and be deceived. This truth should be our basic philosophy of struggle. Apoist youth must remember to answer the fascist enemy in the language they understand. This is currently being done by Leader Apo on the cross of torture and isolation in Imrali. This is being done by the heroic freedom guerrillas in Zap, Avaşin and Metina. The freedom guerrillas have broken the enemy's composure with revolutionary operations and is making the mountains of Kurdistan a grave for fascist gangs. The UAVs and UCAVs of the fascist regime, which boasts of its technical superiority, are hunted one by one in the skies of Kurdistan, showing the collapse of the fascist regime to the world. In the face of Kurdistan’s self-sacrificial guerrilla, the fascist enemy is experiencing a defeat.”

The PKK Youth Committee further stated the following: “The youth of Kurdistan have great duties and responsibilities in such a historic process in which the war of existence and non-existence is being fought. The youth of Kurdistan has always been the pioneer and fighting force of the moves and breakthroughs in our history of struggle. The expression "Youth is the fedayee of Leader Apo" is not just a slogan. It is a truth and heritage created with blood and labour. The youth of Kurdistan, together with women, should understand the leader the best and become practical. The youth is one of the social segments to which Leader Apo has put the most endeavor, interest and will. To be a devotee of the leader is to protect, preserve and develop the values he created.

Leader Apo has created enormous opportunities and possibilities of struggle for the youth of Kurdistan. Today, more than ever, there are areas where the youth of Kurdistan can pour their feelings of revenge into the struggle against the enemy. The most important place for our struggle for freedom is the free mountains of Kurdistan. Kurdistan’s self-sacrificial guerrilla is the power of revenge of our people. It is the hope of a free life. The freedom guerrilla is not only an activist force, it is the nucleus of free life, where Leader Apo's ideology and philosophy of life are put into practice. Our party is a youth party. The youth of Kurdistan should take the freedom guerrilla as their model and example, and the mountains of freedom should be the centre of their struggle.

The enemy tries every method to distract the youth of Kurdistan from this truth, to leave them out of the struggle. It condemns them to a terrible disease of individualism. It wants to reduce them to a state that thinks only and only of itself, escapes from its sociality, and experiences all kinds of alienation. For this, it puts all special and psychological warfare methods into use. Alienation is betraying your own essence. The leader has stated that there is not a single Kurd who has not betrayed himself. In other words, he expressed the reality alienated from its own essence. Today, the place to purify from reality and find one’s own essence is the Kurdistan freedom struggle and the mountains. It is not the fate of the youth of Kurdistan to work for peanuts at the gates of the enemy; to be disciplined with hunger and to be doomed to of all kinds of dirty work. It is also not its destiny to live as an asylum seeker at the gates of Europe with false hopes. The Apoist youth is now writing its own destiny.

Is there anyone who does not see the daily cruelty of the brutal and barbaric Turkish state against our people? Is there a single moment when it does not insult and humiliate our people? Can any human being deny how much it enjoys it when it burns our nature, our lands and mountains together with the people and all other living things in them? Is there anyone left who has not heard that even the dead of the Kurds who want to live free are treated with the most outrageous disrespect?  The youth of Kurdistan must stop playing three monkeys and open their hearts and minds to these burning realities that they can no longer ignore. The youth must first and foremost confront itself by questioning what the Turkish brutality and barbarism has inflicted on our people. Life can no longer be sustained in this swamp of genocide and fascism. Each Kurdish youngster must see and hear that the time to make a decision has come and passed. Comrade Zilan must be understood more than ever in this dark environment of fascism. Comrade Zilan was sacrificially devoted to the line of freedom and the leader of this line, Leader Apo. When the wild enemy hordes dared to attack our leader, she felt and foresaw that the whole world was about to collapse on her. Revenge had to be taken and the enemy had to be held to account. She took our great revenge with this epic act.

Now the sky and the ground in Kurdistan are full of reasons for revenge for the Apoist youth. From İmralı to the mountains and villages of Kurdistan, every enemy attack is a reason to take revenge by becoming Zilan. Our leader and our party were born as a force of accountability. As a great revenge movement, it has written its name on the page of history with red letters. Being the fearful dream of the coloniser, collaborator, agent and all kinds of reactionaries in Kurdistan, it has also been the greatest hope of the oppressed and those who seek a free life. Ensuring the physical freedom of Leader Apo, who created this reality, is the most fundamental and essential duty of the Apoist youth. The day is the day to meet with the truth of Leader Apo. It is the day to grow the Kurdistan Freedom guerrilla. It is the day to hold the fascist, genocidal mentality to account. It is the day to crown the physical freedom of our leader with victory. It is the day for the youth of Kurdistan to claim their historical responsibilities and duties.

On this basis, as the Apoist youth movement, our call to the youth of Kurdistan on the anniversary of Comrade Zilan's historic action and at a time when the enemy's brutal attacks are rampant is this: the line of the patriotic youth of Kurdistan is the Zilan line of life and war. There is no other choice but to fight for a free life. Instead of being fed to the colonialist vultures, the youth of Kurdistan should be the falcon of freedom in our majestic mountains, hit the barbarian enemy in the way Zilan did and march to victory."