After four decades of fighting the Turkish state, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan has urged the group that he founded to abandon its armed struggle.
Two days later, the PKK declared a ceasefire. The development represents a coda to a conflict that has raged since 1984 and claimed an estimated 40,000 lives.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” Ocalan wrote in a statement published on 27 February. “Convene your congress and make a decision; all groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
Critically, Ocalan paired his historic statement with a plea for a new commitment to democracy in Turkey, which puts the onus on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to change how his government treats Kurds and their political representatives.
“The second century of the Republic can achieve and assure permanent and fraternal continuity only if it is crowned with democracy. There is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realization of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way,” he wrote.
Ocalan himself was not present for the historic announcement. He remains imprisoned without possibility of parole on the island of Imrali. Instead, his statement was read to a packed hall in Istanbul by a delegation of veteran Kurdish politicians and watched on TV screens in cities across Kurdistan.
While some activists were disappointed that the PKK leader was unable to appear by video, the delegation did release the first new photo of Ocalan in twelve years, looking older but still instantly recognisable with his signature moustache and wild eyebrows.
Ocalan’s historic statement represents an opportunity to end one of the region’s most persistent and bloody conflicts, though peace is by no means guaranteed. In many ways, this is just the beginning.
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An opening, but a difficult one
Ocalan’s statement and its contents were widely expected. It was the product of lengthy negotiations and coordination that have been ongoing for nearly a year and was driven by both domestic and regional developments.
Many analysts have noted that Erdogan requires support from Kurdish voters for proposed constitutional changes that will allow him to remain in power beyond his current term in office, which will expire in 2028.
Finding accommodation with Ocalan may convince enough Kurds to back the changes, though they will remember the bitter end of the last round of peace talks in 2015 and the subsequent repression of Kurdish political parties.
Turkey also is responding to a rapidly changing Middle East. It finds itself in an increasingly powerful regional position in the context of the Gaza war and the recent collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. Managing the Kurdish situation at home and on its borders will help to shore up that position.
Ankara’s renewed engagement with Ocalan became public in October when Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli, who is a far-right ally of Erdogan, suggested that the PKK leader could be offered parole if he disbanded the PKK. Bahceli was mentioned by name in the 27 February statement as having helped to create a conducive “environment”.
Later, the Turkish government relaxed the heavy restrictions on visiting the PKK leader, who is isolated as the only prisoner on Imrali Island. This allowed him to coordinate with representatives from the Kurdish civil movement, who visited him three times for consultations.
In recent weeks, representatives from the DEM Party fanned out to communicate his message to a variety of interested parties, including the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties. Letters were also sent to relevant figures like Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi to keep them updated.
It all culminated in the 27 February announcement, which went much further than previous calls by Ocalan, which focused on ceasefires or instructions for PKK fighters to withdraw from Turkish territory.
How will Turkey respond?
“It is a historic moment, but there is as much confusion as there is excitement,” Müjge Küçükkeleş, a postdoctoral researcher at SOAS, told The New Arab. “The absence of a clear timeline or any indication of reciprocal actions from Turkey has left some Kurds uncertain.”
It was clear from Ocalan’s statement that he views the end of the armed struggle as intrinsically tied to improvements to democracy in Turkey. Even as the PKK waged its armed struggle, Kurdish civil society and non-violent political activism made leaps and bounds. It will want to see reciprocal action from Erdogan’s government to ensure that it has a place in Turkey’s mainstream politics.
“The DEM Party expects some prisoner releases, immunity for people coming ‘down from the mountains,’ and for their political rights and offices in Turkey to be restored,” Küçükkeleş said.
“I do not think they trust the state though, and I suspect they are right not to,” she added.
In the weeks leading up to Ocalan’s statement, Turkey launched extensive raids against government critics including Kurdish groups. Since local elections a year ago, it has removed the elected mayors of ten cities, accusing them of links to the PKK. The elected officials have been replaced by custodians from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
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Ankara’s harsh attitude extends beyond Turkey’s borders into other parts of Kurdistan.
On 21 February, Turkish special forces engaged PKK fighters in a shootout in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, which was filmed by local villagers. The day before Ocalan’s announcement, a Turkish airstrike killed twelve people, including eight civilians, in northeastern Syria.
These cross-border airstrikes continued even after the 27 February statement. In its response, PKK said that it would not take “armed action unless attacked,” a nuance that could complicate matters.
There is also the matter of Ocalan himself. The PKK called for him to be released and “personally direct and conduct” the congress dissolving the group. Despite Bahceli’s early suggestion, this would be a massive step for the Turkish state and seems unlikely.
The Syrian angle
The collapse of the Assad regime in December put Syrian Kurds front and centre in terms of regional developments. Ocalan did not mention Syria in his statement, but his call has direct relevance for the future of the autonomous institutions that developed there since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Turkey views the People’s Defence Units (YPG), which makes up the backbone of the SDF, as the Syrian branch of the PKK. Yet, Syrian Kurds and their partners in the US have consistently argued that the organisations are separate. This disagreement has contributed to difficult relations between Ankara and Washington over the past decade.
Speaking just hours after Ocalan’s statement, Abdi welcomed it as an “historic juncture,” but made it clear that it did not apply to the SDF. “This is only for the PKK. It is nothing related to us in Syria,” he told reporters gathered in Washington via a video uplink.
Abdi is walking a fine line in an attempt to extract the Syrian-Kurdish authorities from an impossible situation caught between competing geopolitical interests. However, it is clear that Turkey does not accept his nuanced position.
In an interview, AKP Spokesperson Ömer Çelik said on 28 February that “regardless of its name, the terrorist organization with all its elements and extensions in Iraq and Syria must lay down its arms and dissolve itself”.
Across the Middle East, governments and Kurdish parties welcomed Ocalan’s statement. “We hope that peace and stability will be established both within [Turkey] and across the entire region,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani wrote in a statement.
Whether those hopes will be fulfilled depends on what happens next. The 27 February marks the end of one stage, but it is uncertain whether it will also mark the flowering of another.
Winthrop Rodgers is a journalist and analyst based in Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. He focuses on politics, human rights, and political economy.
Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @wrodgers2
