Turkey’s endless conflicts with its ethnic and/or religious groups have been on the agenda for over a century. Various attempts by rulers to suppress or solve these tensions have attracted the attention of observers of Turkey and the international public opinion ever since.
Interestingly, although the latest initiative by the Ankara regime towards the Kurds is ground-breaking at first glance, it has largely gone unnoticed by the world’s media outlets and the public abroad. Only Western governments have welcomed the developments, albeit unenthusiastically.
Why the lack of interest? Most probably because there is no serious prospect of lasting peace on the horizon.
The Gaza genocide, the Russian aggression towards Ukraine and the Sudanese massacres and famine are obviously occupying the headlines almost entirely. Nevertheless, a genuine “Kurdish peace” would normally contain the seeds of regional normalisation, even if only partially. Yet no one seems to recognise this potential in Ankara’s initiative, and rightly so.
Let’s briefly recap the background.
Following the collapse of the latest peace initiative in 2013, Devlet Bahçeli, the staunchest anti-Kurdish politician and chair of the nationalist MHP (junior ally of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan), unexpectedly shook hands with the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party at the opening ceremony of the legislative year at the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 1 October 2024.
Although some speculated that this was his own initiative, such a significant development in the long-standing and deeply rooted Kurdish issue could only have been the result of well-designed and coordinated state action.
The other leading figure in this ongoing drama is Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Until Bahçeli’s call, he was persona non grata, but he immediately became the regime’s interlocutor. Since his capture and imprisonment twenty-five years ago, Ankara has approached Öcalan three times with the same objective: to pressure him into ending the armed struggle and pushing for the dissolution of the PKK. This time, it appears to have worked!
On 27 February, Öcalan declared that the rebel group had “completed its lifecycle”and urged its dissolution, potentially signalling an end to the decades-long conflict that has claimed approximately 50,000 lives, 40,000 of whom were Kurdish. His “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society” was announced to the public at a hotel in Istanbul. The plea for “legal and political regulations for dissolution and disarmament”, which was not included in the call, was later added verbally to the statement.
This major unilateral concession by Öcalan signals that the scenario is being crafted by the authorities, who have simply given Bahçeli a leading role.
Genuine peace negotiations and sustainable conflict resolution require equal and free partners, a condition not met in this scenario as the Kurdish leader is still in jail!
While the PKK circles have yielded to the call of the “supreme leader” Öcalan, the general public in Kurdish-populated areas remains deeply sceptical
Compared to the previous “peace” initiative of 2013, there has been an apparent regression. At that time, Öcalan linked the resolution of the Kurdish issue to the demobilisation of the PKK, while also proposing a holistic framework. Today, however, there is no longer any connection between the dismantlement of the PKK and a lasting solution to the Kurdish issue.
The new scenario assumes that the Kurdish issue will be resolved within a vague framework of “national solidarity, brotherhood and democracy”, without any of the structural changes that are compulsory for equal citizenship and recognition of the Kurdish identity. In the regime’s daily rhetoric, the ongoing process is succinctly labelled: “terror-free Turkey” – nothing more! Worse still, Öcalan appears to agree with the regime, systematically espousing a narrative of brotherhood in which Turkishness clearly takes precedence.
Within this framework, the regime can make gestures of goodwill, but never groundbreaking moves that would establish the constitutional, legal and political foundations of equal citizenship. Therefore, Kurds can only become full citizens if they dissolve into the Turkish majority. Consequently, since the end of February, the regime has not taken a single meaningful step towards the Kurds.
The only concrete action taken by Ankara was to set up an advisory parliamentary commission that meets behind closed doors, with the regime parties holding an absolute majority. Notably, its agenda does not include a key Kurdish demand: the official recognition of the Kurdish language!
As for the opposition, its main party, the CHP, is reluctant to play the regime’s game, dreaming that any normalisation would lead to overall democratisation. It’s as though we’ve seen an authoritarian regime evolve towards democracy before!
The negative consequences of such a clumsy process are looming. While the PKK circles have yielded to the call of the “supreme leader” Öcalan, the general public in Kurdish-populated areas remains deeply sceptical. While everyone cheers the official end of the armed struggle, considering its potential to spare the lives of children, no one expects anything more.
Overall, the process will strengthen the regime bloc, which will reap the benefits of a “terror-free Turkey”, and weaken the Kurdish political movement. This carries the risk of violent rejection of the Kurdish “surrender” by radical and less radical groups within the Kurdish community.
However, beyond this drama, Ankara’s ultimate goal remains the dissolution of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in Syrian Kurdistan-Rojava. This administration is led by Syrian Kurds, and has a military force of 100,000 that has been trained and equipped by NATO.
Nevertheless, merging this military force with the nascent Syrian Army appears to be the only reasonable outcome for Damascus, AANES and the international coalition supporting the entity, which comprises the US, the UK, France and Saudi Arabia. Despite Turkey’s obstinate opposition, negotiations are underway between all actors.
The Turkish state has always viewed the Kurdish issue as purely a security issue, whether in Turkey or neighbouring countries. This attitude will not change unless Ankara is forced to accept the Rojava fait accompli, thereby accepting the empowerment and legitimacy of a Kurdish-led polity in its vicinity and the broader region.
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