Just up the stairs of Gezi Park, a group dances the halay, as a boy RIGHT waves a PKK flag. Since 1984, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, commonly known as the PKK, has fought an intermittent war against the Turkish state for an independent Kurdistan. As of spring 2013, there is a cease fire and ongoing negotiations.

The significance of large numbers of Kurds and Turks participating together in the Gezi Park Protests cannot be underestimated. However, the presence of outlawed groups, including and especially, the PKK, in Occupied Gezi Park and Taksim Square was very controversial. Groups from very divergent political strata converged on the park. In unprecedented fashion, once mutually hostile groups stood side by side. Yet, in doing so, they politicized what had originally been a spontaneous grassroots event while competing with one another for space and influence.