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Asad Mirza
It appears that one of the Middle East’s most intractable conflicts might be nearing its end, and its ramifications will be felt far and wide, following the call for peace by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. For half a century, Kurdish militants have fought Türkiye for independence in the southeast of the country, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives and has rippled beyond Türkiye’s borders into Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
On Thursday last (27 February), Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), called on its members to lay down arms and dissolve the group.
However, the call’s success now hinges on sustained cooperation among the various parties involved, but political analysts are far from confident that the PKK militants, based in mountainous northern Iraq, will heed the appeal of Öcalan, who has been held in an island jail near Istanbul for a quarter of a century.
Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called Öcalan’s message the start of a new phase for peace efforts, although his government has publicly rebuffed suggestions that Öcalan’s call could be followed by peace talks.
Analysts say that for now, Erdoğan, 71, is focused especially on the domestic political dividends that peace could bring as he looks to extend his two-decade rule beyond 2028 when his term expires.
The announcement created ripples across the Middle East, and may affect an array of Kurdish militia groups with long-held but varied ties to the PKK. The group, which is classified as terrorist in Türkiye, the US, and the UK, called Öcalan’s announcement part of “a new historic process” for the Middle East.
The group’s executive committee also called for Öcalan to be freed from his island prison, to “personally direct” a meeting that would prompt them to lay down their weapons.
According to the New York Times, PKK launched an armed insurgency against the Turkish state in the early 1980s, originally seeking independence for the Kurds, who are believed to make up about 15% or more of Türkiye’s population.
Initially the insurgency started from the mountains in eastern and southern Türkiye, PKK fighters attacked Turkish military bases and police stations, prompting harsh government responses. Later, the conflict spread to other parts of the country, with devastating PKK bombings in Turkish cities that killed many civilians.
In 1999, Türkiye captured Öcalan and convicted him of leading an armed terrorist group. He received a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison. Since his incarceration, Öcalan has shifted its ideology away from secession and toward Kurdish rights inside Türkiye.
The Kurds are an ethnic group of roughly 40 million people concentrated in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Türkiye. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.
The Kurds were promised a nation of their own by world powers after World War I, but that was never granted. There were Kurdish rebellions in various countries over the following generations, and Kurds have faced state suppression of their language and culture.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the largely Kurdish northern region of Iraq has been semi-autonomous. Multiple efforts to freeze or end the Türkiye-PKK conflict have been made, starting with a ceasefire in 1993 and talks in 2009-11 and 2013-15. But all of them collapsed.
In this context, Dr Medhat Hamad, a professor of Iranian and Asian Studies at Tanta University in Egypt and head of the Farabi Centre for Political and Development Studies, told Türkiye’s Hawar News that Abdullah Öcalan’s announcement is of utmost importance, as it reveals a political, ideological, and even a new national self-review that he conducted after a thorough analysis of the entire global and regional scene.
This also reveals that there has been a genuine review in the Turkish political mindset that manages the affairs of the Turkish state on one hand, and the conflict with the Kurds in general and Öcalan in particular on the other hand. Therefore, Dr Hamad said, Öcalan would not have issued this statement unless he had Turkish assurances, promises, and commitments to open the space and provide a sound democratic life for the Kurds to achieve what they could not achieve through arms.
Dr Hamad explained that the PKK leader Öcalan has read between the lines regarding what the future holds for the Kurdish issue on one hand, and perhaps some Western plans, especially American ones, which could strike at the strategic and vital interests of both the Kurds and the Turks together in the coming years, extending what happened in Syria, and this is very important and extremely dangerous.
Dr Hamad said that Öcalan has a realistic understanding of the regional and international scene. He said, “Abdullah Öcalan perhaps wanted to save the future of the Kurdish cause, unlike some other political organisations, and he read the scene well and he wanted to preserve the existence and essence of the Kurdish cause for the next hundred years.”
Meanwhile, Türkiye’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Erdogan’s right-wing ally, has become a staunch supporter of the peace process and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, who started the new process after his unexpected call suggesting that Öcalan announce an end to the insurgency in exchange for the possibility of his release in October 2024, has welcomed the recent call.
Yet, restoring peace might not be that easy, the Washington Institute’s Turkish research programme director Soner Cagaptay told Reuters that the PKK leaders holed up in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq remain deeply suspicious of Ankara’s intentions.
“Elderly commanders might also object to disbanding the PKK entirely or immediately without achieving any of its original goals – an outcome that could suggest they have thrown their lives away for nothing,” he said.
The details of Ocalan’s announcement were “purposefully shrouded in mystery, in part because Ankara’s two previous dialogues with the PKK failed miserably”, said Cagaptay.
Indeed, if Öcalan’s followers heed the new call, it would mark a turning point for Türkiye and have far-reaching implications for the Middle East, as Erdogan looks to capitalise on the upheaval in Syria and military gains against the PKK fighters based in northern Iraq.
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Asad Mirza is a New Delhi-based senior commentator on national, international, defence and strategic affairs, environmental issues, an interfaith practitioner, and a media consultant.