# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/abdullah-ocalan
# Generated: 2026-08-31T23:26:07.633Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/abdullah-ocalan"
name: "Abdullah Öcalan"
slug: "abdullah-ocalan"
description: "Founded the PKK in 1978 and led a decades-long insurgency against Turkey until his capture in Kenya in 1999. Now the sole prisoner on an island in the Sea of Marmara, his writings from solitary confinement shape governance experiments in Syria and frame the terms of ceasefires he brokers from a cell."
tagline: "Founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Abdullah_%C3%96calan.png"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "Turkey"
  isoCode: "TR"
category:
  name: "Politicians"
  slug: "politicians"
profileType:
  name: "Politician"
  slug: "politician"
birthDate: "1949-04-04"
livingStatus: "LIVING"
scores:
  popularity:           59.45
  momentum:             1.06270613917506
  historical:           26.05722
  currentAttention:     10.25
  sourceConfidence:     70
  profileCompleteness:  80
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
  - name: "Historical Figures"
    slug: "historical-figures"
  - name: "Politician"
    slug: "politician"
  - name: "Politics"
    slug: "politics"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "Turkey"
    slug: "turkey"
  - name: "Middle East"
    slug: "middle-east"
  - name: "20th Century"
    slug: "20th-century"
platforms:
  - platform:  "IMDB"
    url:       "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7643627/"
    handle:    "nm7643627"
  - platform:  "WEBSITE"
    url:       "https://abdullahocalan.net"
sources:
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    title: "Wikidata"
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    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
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    title: "عبدالله اوجالان"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "আব্দুল্লাহ ওজালান"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
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    title: "عەبدوڵڵا ئۆجەلان"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Αμπντουλάχ Οτζαλάν"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan"
    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan"
    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87_%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86"
    title: "عبدالله اوجالان"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "عبدالله اۊجالان"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://pl.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://tr.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
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    title: "Abdullah Öcalan"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "عبد الله أوجلان"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "عبد الله اوجلان"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Abdullah Öcalan co-founded the Kurdistan Workers' Party in 1978 and a year later fled to Syria, which sheltered him and the PKK for nearly two decades. In 1984 he launched the armed conflict with Turkey that would define his life. When Syria withdrew its protection in the late 1990s, Turkish intelligence tracked him to Nairobi and seized him in February 1999. A Turkish court sentenced him to death under laws against forming armed organizations; the sentence became aggravated life imprisonment when the death penalty was abolished. He has spent every year since on İmralı island, for a decade the prison's only inmate, his contact with the outside world subject to long blackouts. From that isolation he has written books advancing democratic confederalism and jineology, ideas now embedded in the autonomous administration of northeast Syria, and in 2013 he brokered talks that produced a temporary peace process. In February 2025 he called on the PKK to disarm, prompting the group to declare a unilateral ceasefire.