When jailed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan spoke on camera for the first time in more than 25 years, the 76-year-old sounded like a man who is tired of conflict and wants out.
“I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and I call on you to realise this principle,” he implored members of the militant group he founded in the 1970s, in a video released on Wednesday.
Hoary-headed and with a slight belly, Ocalan's appearance and demeanour were a stark contrast to the last time he appeared on video in 1999. At that time, during his trial, he was the leader of a group actively waging an armed insurgency against the Turkish state. He was found guilty of “treason and separatism” and jailed on a remote island in the Sea of Marmara, south of Istanbul. He has been there ever since.
Since then there have been unsuccessful attempts to end the insurgency that has claimed more than 40,000 lives on both sides over four decades. A previous ceasefire broke down in 2015.
In the past 18 months, huge geopolitical shifts and wars across the region have brought home the reality of conflict's destabilising impact, and have squeezed the PKK and its regional affiliates.
More broadly, the power of non-state actors – from US-backed Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and other Iran-backed groups in Iraq – has been diminished after years in which they often rivalled government forces in strength.
The Trump administration is less interested in US military intervention in the Middle East. Israel has weakened non-state actors in the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance”, including Hezbollah. Long-running Turkish military operations have diminished the PKK. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December has prompted calls for an end to federalist-type arrangements in the country.
“From now on, we are entering a period in which the justification and conditions for the existence of non-state actors like the PKK will be much more difficult,” the Ankara Institute, a think tank based in the Turkish capital, said in a report released on Thursday.
Push for peace
Ocalan issued a call to PKK members in February to dissolve the organisation and lay down their weapons. It followed a process initiated last year by an ultranationalist ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Devlet Bahceli, who suggested greater freedoms for Ocalan in exchange for his group’s dissolution. After some internal discussion, the PKK agreed to disband in May.
The Turkish government says it is keen to propel the process forward, framing it as a means of achieving a “terror-free Turkey”. It is understood to be open to creating legal pathways for the return and reintegration for former PKK militants, as well as long-term efforts to heal communities affected by the conflict.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), which has MPs in Turkey’s parliament and distances itself from the PKK as an armed group, has been liaising with Turkish authorities in what it is framing as a peaceful route to achieving democratic freedoms for all citizens.
There is regional support for the dissolution of the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the USA, EU and Turkey. After Ocalan’s video message this week, Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed, said the PKK leader’s call was, “a courageous decision that reflects a profound rational review”.
On Friday, PKK militants held an initial disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where its fighters have mountain bases. A senior Turkish official said it was “a concrete and welcome step toward ending the group’s decades-long campaign of violence”.
Turkey remains “committed to supporting all efforts that prioritise disarmament, stability and lasting reconciliation in the region”, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Turkish officials, seeing the regional fallout from the Israel-Gaza war, from Lebanon to Yemen to Iran, want to minimise the risk of instability reaching its doors. That includes a possible resumption of widespread hostilities with the PKK.
“It has become clear to everyone that Turkey must strengthen its unity and solidarity in the face of regional developments in the Middle East, regardless of their origin,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told a Turkish television channel on Friday.
Regional repercussions
The regional scope of the PKK dissolution process is evident in the to-ing and fro-ing of officials and diplomats. The director of Turkey’s intelligence services, Ibrahim Kalin, has made frequent trips to both Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, and Baghdad, to discuss the PKK’s dissolution process.
Keen to increase economic co-operation, Iraq's central government has grown closer to Turkey. As part of that, it has hardened its line on the PKK militants. It has outlawed the group, but stopped short of designating it a terrorist organisation.
The PKK not only has bases in the mountains of Iraq's Kurdish region, it has also built centres of influence and affiliate networks in areas under federal control, such as Sinjar, on the border with Syria, and Makhmour in Kirkuk province. Baghdad is working with Ankara on a major economic integration project known as the Development Road – a series of trade networks that will connect Iraq’s southern Gulf ports to Turkey.
Officials and analysts in Baghdad and Ankara see eliminating PKK threats as essential to the project’s success, as the militants currently occupy areas through which the routes would pass.
In Syria, Kurdish groups based in the country’s north-east are under increasing pressure to merge into new armed forces commanded from Damascus. For years, they carved out an area of control and set up an autonomous administration.
The area is secured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the US has backed as a major ally in counter-ISIS operations. But the group’s backbone consists of militias from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers an extension of the PKK. The US support for the SDF drove a major wedge between Washington and its Nato ally Turkey.
The SDF’s leaders have deep links with the PKK: its commander Mazloum Abdi belonged to the group, and pictures of Ocalan are frequently seen across north-eastern Syria. But following Ocalan’s February call, Mr Abdi said it was “not related to us in Syria”.
However it defines itself, many factors are pressing the SDF to dissolve. Turkey’s view of the SDF as an extension of the PKK means it has threatened to continue cross-border military operations against the group.
The Assad regime's fall has provided grounds for Turkey to find and create stronger partners in Damascus to eliminate the SDF. Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara has rejected federalism as a model for Syria, and the central government also wants to secure control over hydrocarbon resources, which largely lie in areas currently under Kurdish administration.
In March, the SDF signed an agreement with Mr Al Shara for civilian and military integration into the central state. But the mechanics and contours of actually doing so are blurry, and the process is moving slowly.
This week an expected meeting between Mr Abdi and Mr Al Shara in Damascus did not materialise. Both sides met separately with US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, who is also US Ambassador to Turkey and has been leading US efforts to build ties with the new government in Damascus.
“The SDF was not able to comprehend the situation they are in,” Omer Ozkizilcik, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The National. “Ankara and Damascus gave them an olive branch including some form of local governance, but they thought they are in a position to dictate terms.”
While the SDF and Damascus continue what could be drawn-out negotiations over integration, the fate of former Turkish PKK members, including those currently based in Iraq, also remains to be resolved.
Sensitivity over amnesty
The pro-Kurdish DEM Party is calling for the formation of a parliamentary commission to solidify the opening with the PKK in Turkish law. That could lead to amendments to the country’s anti-terrorism laws to enable members to return to Turkey without legal repercussions. They also want greater rights to use the Kurdish language, an end to curbs on Kurdish political activity, and better prison conditions for Ocalan.
Turkish officials have acknowledged that a commission could be formed, and intelligence chief Mr Kalin, whose service is tasked with monitoring the PKK disarmament, met Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus on Wednesday to discuss the “proposed parliamentary commission that will oversee the next phase of the process”, Turkish media reported.
“After the dissolution of the PKK and them agreeing to lay down their arms, there has been the need for a law in the Turkish parliament over the issue of an amnesty for PKK members and also the thousands of political prisoners in Turkish jails,” Jabar Yawar, a former secretary general of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Peshmerga, which acts as a regional defence ministry, told The National.
Much remains unclear about what amendments could be made, given the sensitivity among the Turkish public over allowing PKK members any kind of amnesty or freedoms.
Mr Erdogan said on Wednesday that the PKK dissolution process would not include any steps “that would cast a shadow on the memory of our martyrs or hurt their spirits”, suggesting that the chances of an amnesty are slim for members accused of involvement in fatal operations against Turkish troops or civilians.
The cost of the PKK peace process failing is high, in terms of regional security but also politically for all actors involved. Mr Erdogan wants to be seen as the president who could end Turkey’s number one national security concern and lay to rest a conflict that has traumatised the country for decades.
Ocalan has called on his members to disarm, and them failing to do so could cast doubt on his long-standing position as their spiritual leader. The DEM Party wants to be seen as a representative that can secure Kurdish political freedoms and rights within Turkey, without supporting armed conflict.
In Syria, failing to integrate the Kurdish-led SDF could, at best, lead to the same type of long-running political disputes that have plagued the relationship between Iraq's central authorities and the Kurdistan Regional Government. At worst, it could lead to more conflict and violence. In Iraq, the opportunity cost of failing to disarm the PKK is the loss of the regional economic integration that it is seeking as it enjoys a period of relative political stability.
According to the Ankara Institute’s report, there is growing support among the Turkish public for disarming the PKK – including among ethnic Kurds, although most of the overall population do not support providing former PKK militants with an amnesty. Nevertheless, the political consensus over the issue as a whole needs to be translated into success, it said.
“The fact that this process has found broad support among the public reveals how strong the society's war fatigue, longing for non-conflict, and expectations for peace are.”
