You're not wrong about the PKK. My comment was about their timing --- assuming the Kurdish political structure has any influence over them at all.
They are not thumbing their noses at any central guvmint
They've made some sketchy oil deals outside the authority of the central government. Given the economics of Iraq, there is no better way to thumb one's nose at their government. It's kinda like the death match for influence going on in Basra right now... Petty power grabs are costing lives.
assuming the Kurdish political structure has any influence over them [PKK] at all.
***That’s a difficult assumption to verify. If the Kurdish political structure did have influence, they would have been getting them to knock off the raids into Turkey. So it does appear that any influence is quite limited. And my impression of these kinds of groups that were originally funded by Marxists and trained by the KGB is that they aren’t really patriotic organizations. Kinda like how the KGB circumvented much of the IRA in Ireland and it took a lot of work to outmaneuver them — it only happened after KGB influence waned with the Berlin Wall coming down. So, if I were running the “Kurdish political structure”, I’d sell the PKK down the river in exchange for autonomy in eastern Turkurdistan, or whatever it’s called.