The day after President Erdogan’s governing allies, the Receptive Tayyip raised the prospect of a contract to end the four-year Kurdish rebellion last year.
The October attack on Turkish aerospace industry headquarters reminded us that despite a relentless military campaign against extremists, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) still poses a fatal threat.
Now there is cautionary hope that after 40 years of fighting and 40,000 lives are lost, Turkey, where the conflict is unforgettable. On Thursday, Abdulazeekaran, who founded the PKK in 1978 and is serving a life sentence, called on his followers to put guns and disband the group.
If Öcalan’s call listens to the PKK, it will provide Erdogan with a political coup and pursue a possible route to pursuing a possible route to extend his rules to a third when his term expires in 2028, in order to secure the main support of Turkey’s longest-serving leadership and key support from Kurdish lawmakers.
The need to resolve the conflict became even more severe after Turkish-backed troops overthrew Syrian Assad regime. There, powerful Kurdish-controlled extremist groups could undermine Erdogan’s efforts to help stabilize the country.
But this effort is full of pitfalls. Erdogan’s final attempt to negotiate a political solution with the PKK in 2015 collapsed into the worst battle in decades.
His latest talk with Öcalan took place behind a wall of secrets, but it is unclear which side is trying to admit it. The PKK has said it wants to release Öcalan, and in the past it has sought a wide range of pardons from fighters of that rank.
The group will declare a ceasefire on Saturday in response to the call, but according to a statement from the PKK executive committee released on a news site close to the group, it said disarmament requires “practical leadership” from Okaran.
“We fully agree with Call’s content and declare that we will adhere to and implement Call on our own frontlines, but we would like to emphasize that success will require proper democratic politics and legal foundations.”
75-year-old Öcalan is considered by many of the 17mn ethnic Kurds in Türkiye as an iconic leader in the struggle for Kurdish rights. In his appeal, he said the PKK was established when “democratic politics” was closed to the Kurds, but Turkey’s acceptance of Kurdish identity and other improvements meant that the PKK “completed its lifespan and required disbandment.”
Its ability to rock around 5,000 PKK fighters who have drilled holes in Mount Kandil, mainly in Iraq, will be tested by Syrian affiliates.
The final attempt to ensure peace included discussions about boosting the cultural and political rights of Kurds. It collapsed after a pro-Kurdish political party won the largest vote share in history and took Erdogan’s single-party rule. The Turkish forces responded with ferocious attacks in the southeastern part of the Kurdish people, kicking out the significantly reduced PKK.
A decade-long crackdown on non-violent Kurdish political movements has continued, with thousands of activists in prison and over 150 elected mayors have been denied from their posts for many years. Kurdish politician Serahatin DeMirtash challenged Erdogan for the presidency, but has been in prison since 2016 for his political speech despite the release of the European human rights order.
Kuma Chachek, a researcher at the Anatolia Institute in France in Istanbul, said focusing on disarmament of the PKK without dealing with Kurdish dissatisfaction could destined this effort to ensure long-term peace.
“The Kurdish problems are greater than the PKK,” said Chaisek, who wrote a book on conflict and a book on previous attempts to build peace. “For a lasting solution, we need to democratize and eliminate the economic inequality and discrimination that Kurds face.”
Öcalan stopped making demands from the government. But the third largest grouping of the people’s democracy and equality party, or the parliament, whose foundation is overwhelmingly Kurdish, has long pushed education in Kurdish language and sought the release of thousands of politicians and activists from prison.
“Okaran now did what he can. This is the first step, and after seeing what steps the government and the state take, progress will happen,” said Dem MP Saruhan Oluç.
Analysts say Erdogan may be forced to meet some of the DEM’s objectives in order to change the constitution to abolish it or win support for calling a snap election.
Reconciliation with the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU, could also lead to major advances in Erdogan’s mission to stabilize Syria under a friendly new government. The biggest threat to these new rulers is the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), ruled by the Kurdish people and supported by the US, close to the PKK.
Leha Ruhavior, director of the Kurdish Research Centre in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, said success in the PKK would “open a way for reconciliation” with Syrian Kurds.
However, back down the SDF is not easy either. Its commander Mazurum Abdi said on Thursday that he welcomed Öcalan’s “historic” call, which “had nothing to do with us in Syria.”
But Erdogan probably hopes that peace at home will help at least convince Washington to drop support for the SDF. The Trump administration said it hopes Ocaran’s call will ease turkey concerns about Syrian groups.
Gönül Tol, director of the Turkish program at Washington’s Middle East Institute, said that even if Erdogan’s gambit succeeds or ends in more violence, the Turkish president will be the “biggest winner.”
“If we can say he’s the one who will end this rebellion, we’ll support his outlook in 2028,” she said. “And if things don’t go smoothly, he can still say he tried, increasing the pressure that Kurds (and) have a more sympathetic international audience.”
But for Fatma, a 42-year-old textile worker whose brother died in 2016 who fought for the PKK in southeastern Turkey, Öcalan’s message provides a first ray of hope in 10 years to “Kurds and Turks who are tired of war.”
“Just my heart burns for my brothers, the soldiers’ families hurt for them. It’s time for the guns to be silent,” she said.
