Since late 2012, the Turkish government had conducted peace negotiations with the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant organisation in order to end 40 years of ethnic conflict in the predominantly Kurdish south-east of the country. The negotiations, called the solution process led to a relative ceasefire, though critics have claimed that the ceasefire has led to the PKK becoming stronger and their atrocities have gone unnoticed in an attempt by the government to preserve the solution process.[1]