Mahsum Korkmaz, also known as Agit (

Kurmanji Kurmanji (, ), also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northernmost of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the ...

: Egîd;

Sorani Central Kurdish, also known as Sorani Kurdish, is a Kurdish dialect or a language spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Central Kurdish is one of the ...

: عەگید) (1956 – 28 March 1986), was the first commander of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

(PKK)'s military forces. Korkmaz moved to Lebanon in 1979 and alongside

Kemal Pir Kemal Pir, also known as Laz Kemal (1952 in Güzeloluk, Gümüşhane Province – 7 September 1982 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) was a Laz-Turkish Marxist–Leninist revolutionary and one of the ethnically Laz founders of the Kurdistan Workers' Part ...

was responsible for the recruitment across Turkey. He is known to have led the 15 August 1984 PKK attacks which was the start of the PKK's armed rebellion for Kurdish independence. He was killed by Turkish forces on 28 March 1986. The PKK's main training facility during the 1980s and early 1990s, the Mahsum Korkmaz Academy, which was located in

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley (, ; Bekaa, Biqâ, Becaa) is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon and its most important farming region. Industry, especially the country's agricultural industry, also flourishes in Beqaa. The region broadly corresponds to th ...

in Lebanon was named after him. Today, Mahsum Korkmaz is honored in the form of many commemoration days by the Kurdish Movement. In

Lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...

a statue of Korkmaz was erected in a cemetery on 15 August 2014, the 30th anniversary of the 15 August 1984 attack. The statue was subsequently demolished by Turkish authorities. The PKK denied it had ordered to erect the statue in Lice. On 28 March 2017 a statue of Korkmaz was erected in

Kobanî Kobani, also Kobane, officially Ayn al-Arab, is a Kurdish-majority city in the Ayn al-Arab District in northern Syria, lying immediately south of the Syria–Turkey border. As a consequence of the Syrian civil war, the city came under the co ...

References

1956 births 1986 deaths People from Silvan, Turkey Turkish Kurdish politicians Kurdish military personnel killed in action Members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party Apoists People of the Lebanese Civil War {{Kurd-bio-stub