Turkish-Kurdish Rapprochement: New Hope for the Resolution of an Old Conflict

Alarming news about the numerous conflicts in West Asia currently dominate reporting from the region. However, away from the spotlight, hopes for a political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey have been growing for some time.

Since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Kurdish population of the country has been confronted with a policy of denial and genocide. Today, however, Kurdish and Turkish representatives seem to be seriously interested in ending the confrontation.

Accordingly, there have been intense discussions in Turkey for months about ending the Kurdish-Turkish conflict on the basis of comprehensive democratisation of the country. Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdish people’s leader who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999, plays a central role in the political negotiations. And on the Turkish side, too, old advocates of conflict seem to be undergoing a change of heart in view of the profound regional and international changes.

Developments to date

Since October last year, official talks have been taking place on the Turkish prison island of Imrali between Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and Turkish government representatives.

This new round of talks began with a speech given by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the ultra-nationalist Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi or Nationalist Movement Party and coalition partner of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in the Turkish parliament on October 22, 2024. In his speech, Bahçeli called on Öcalan to dissolve the PKK and promised his release in return. A day later, Abdullah Öcalan’s more than four years of total isolation ended when he was visited on Imrali by parliamentarian Ömer Öcalan, who is also Öcalan’s nephew. Four more family visits have taken place since then.

In addition, a political delegation of parliamentarians from Turkey’s third-largest party, the DEM Party (Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party), has officially met with Öcalan seven times on Imrali. The DEM Party is playing an important mediating role in the current phase. After each of their meetings, DEM representatives have met with the major parties in the country and a large number of civil society organisations. The aim is to make the negotiation process transparent and to involve broad sections of society. These meetings play a role that should not be underestimated in conveying messages directly to Öcalan, relaying feedback from various political and social circles to him, and thus building urgently needed trust in the negotiations.

A highlight of the negotiations was the “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society” written by Abdullah Öcalan and read out by DEM representatives after a meeting on Imrali on February 27. In it, Öcalan called for comprehensive democratisation in Turkey and at the same time demanded that the PKK disband and lay down its arms.

Öcalan’s appeal met with widespread support around the world. The governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, China, the United States, and Saudi Arabia, among others, as well as the UN Secretary-General, declared their support. The PKK responded by declaring a unilateral ceasefire two days later, which remains in force today, dissolving itself during its 12th party congress from May 5 to 7 this year, and announcing its willingness to end the armed struggle.

In response, Erdoğan’s coalition partner Bahçeli proposed on May 18 the establishment of a cross-party parliamentary commission to accompany the negotiation process. Öcalan and DEM representatives had already emphatically called for such a commission in order to involve all political parties in the country and other civil society groups in the talks. However, Turkish government representatives initially insisted on the immediate disarmament of the PKK, which significantly delayed the start of the commission’s work.

To speed up the process, a video message from Öcalan was released on July 9, in which he again emphasised the importance of comprehensive democratisation in Turkey and called on the PKK to lay down its arms. This was the first such message from Öcalan to reach the public after 26 years in prison. Just two days later, 30 members of the recently dissolved PKK, including numerous leading figures, symbolically destroyed their weapons in a ceremony attended by numerous international, Kurdish, and Turkish representatives in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

MHP leader Devlet Bahceli reacted by stating that “the founding leader of the PKK [Abdullah Öcalan] kept his promise and stood behind his commitment.” The Turkish president also responded positively, saying on July 12: “As a first step, we will establish a commission in the Turkish Grand National Assembly and start talking about the legal needs of the process under the roof of the Parliament.” In his speech, he admitted that the policies of numerous Turkish governments had fuelled the conflict and estimated the cost of the war for Turkey at $ 2 trillion. On July 18, at the invitation of Turkish parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus, leading representatives of the DEM Party, the CHP, the İYİ Party, the Yeni Yol Party, the MHP, and the AKP finally met to agree on the working methods of the parliamentary commission.

The reasons for the renewed negotiations

This is not the first time that attempts have been made to resolve the Kurdish question politically.

Since 1993, Öcalan and the PKK have declared unilateral ceasefires seven times and announced their willingness to negotiate. The last of these attempts took place from 2013 to 2015. Since then, Turkey has been waging an all-out war against the Kurdish population in its own country. In 2016, it also extended its heavy attacks to northern Syria and Iraq, both traditional Kurdish settlement areas. So why are negotiations taking place again right now? Three developments play an important role here.

From a military perspective, Turkey has not succeeded in defeating the PKK and its armed forces, the People’s Defense Forces (HPG, for Hêzên Parastina Gel). The Turkish government justified its occupation of large parts of the Turkish-Iraqi border area since the summer of 2016 by saying that it wanted to advance as quickly as possible to the Kandil Mountains in the KRI, which are important to the PKK. However, despite daily air strikes, 138 Turkish military posts on Iraqi territory, and the use of chemical weapons, it is still far from achieving this goal. This is also due to important tactical changes made by the HPG, which today wages war with the help of drones, small professionally trained guerrilla teams, anti-aircraft missiles against Turkish drones, and complex underground positions. This war has cost Turkey the lives of thousands of Turkish soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars since 2015. Many observers describe the military situation today as a stalemate.

The renewed escalation of the war since 2015 has led to a profound economic crisis in Turkey. According to the Inflation Research Group (ENAG), inflation in the country stands at over 71%. During a meeting of the country’s oldest and most influential business association, the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD), its chair of the High Advisory Council, Mehmet Ömer Arif Aras, openly criticised the country’s economic, social, and political situation at the beginning of the year and came to the serious conclusion: “As a country, we are demoralised. We are experiencing a crisis of confidence.” According to official figures, the poverty rate rose to 13.6% last year, with almost 40% of the population forced to restrict their food consumption, e.g. meat, due to a lack of financial resources.

In addition, the ongoing crises and wars in West Asia are seen by Turkish politicians as a threat to their country. In a speech on June 23 this year, Devlet Bahçeli responded to the Israeli-Iranian war with the following words:

“The dangerous and painful goals aimed at the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran […] send a strong message to other countries in the region. One does not need to be a fortune teller to predict which country will be next after Iraq, Syria, and Iran. It must be understood that the existence, unity, sovereignty, and historical heritage of the Republic of Turkey supersede all considerations and opinions. […] Our 86 million citizens will break the games of the regional and global centers that send a message to our country with bombs dropped on Iran, let DAESH attack a church in Damascus, let foreign agents roam among us, and plan possible provocations and agitations.”

Since the announcement of the Abraham Accords in 2020 and the IMEC project in 2023, Turkey has felt increasingly excluded. Turkish politicians see more and more that with the collapse of the Sykes-Picot order that came about during World War I, Turkey is in danger of losing its central position in West Asia.

Prospects for success?

Given the ongoing negotiations, the mood among the Kurdish population is one of cautious optimism. Support for a political solution to the Kurdish question is also considerable within Turkish society. Kurdish politicians recently unanimously criticised the slow pace at which the Turkish government is taking practical steps. The release of Öcalan, the work of the cross-party commission on a new, democratic constitution, and an end to military attacks on Kurdish settlement areas are considered important steps for the further success of the negotiations. Skeptics point, for example, to the campaign of criminalisation and arrests against the CHP in recent months, the continued detention of more than 10,000 political prisoners in Turkey, the continued provocative language of Turkish government and state representatives, the severely restricted opportunities for Öcalan to communicate with the outside world, and the ongoing attacks by the Turkish military on areas controlled by the HPG in the KRI.

And yet, the Kurdish population of Turkey and large sections of Turkish society see prospects for success.

Dozens of political prisoners have been released in recent weeks, and even ultra-nationalist politicians such as Bahçeli are trying to use more conciliatory language, for example by referring to Öcalan as the “founding leader.” In northeastern Syria, a ceasefire between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey has been in place for more than three months. This can be seen as directly linked to the negotiations on Imrali. Turkish drone and air strikes in the KRI have virtually ceased in the last few months.

With regard to Öcalan’s situation, it was recently reported that a comprehensive new building is under construction on the prison island of Imrali. It is believed that Öcalan will be able to communicate more freely there in the form of house arrest and receive journalists, lawyers, and other important figures. The cross-party commission, which is now about to begin its work, has also recently raised hopes among many that, after more than eight months, a political process involving broad political and social participation will finally begin. The progress made in the coming months will therefore show whether the urgently needed democratisation of Turkey will take place and, with it, a political solution to the Kurdish question will emerge.

At the international level, countries such as Switzerland, Norway, and Germany have offered to play a mediating role. Such signs of support from international actors will continue to be important in the future in order to encourage all parties involved in Turkey to take constructive and courageous steps.

Nilüfer Koç is a member of the Executive Council of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK).

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