Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has appeared on a video urging his group to move toward peace. It is part of a larger process in which the PKK is moving to lay down its arms.
In May, the PKK said it would lay down its arms and disband, but it is not clear when this process will begin and how long it will take. The Ocalan video, where he appears with other men, could mark the next stage of the process.
Most reports about this shift suggest that this is an end of “armed struggle” for the PKK and a “full transition to democratic politics.”
The PKK has been active for 40 years, and the conflict was primarily confined to parts of Turkey for many years.
The Kurdish community in Turkey primarily lives in eastern Turkey in rural areas, although there are large numbers of Kurds who live in other areas of the country, including in Istanbul.
Kurds have been oppressed by the Turkish state since the founding of modern Turkey. The PKK emerged as one of many similar types of far-left and communist groups that appeared around the world in the 20th century.
The PKK’s initial conflict was against the nationalist Turkish governing authorities who had denied the existence of Kurds and tried to forcibly assimilate them. Eventually, things shifted.
The reach of the PKK went further than Turkey
The PKK also influenced Kurds in neighboring countries and set up various branches of itself in other states.
Ocalan, the PKK leader, moved to Syria in 1979 and resided there until 1998, when he was expelled. He then moved to other countries before being captured in Kenya.
After the AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in Turkey in the early 2000s, there was hope that its new policies might change things.
The AKP is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and did not have the antipathy toward Kurds that the Turkish nationalist secular leadership once had. Instead, it embraced Kurds as fellow Muslims. Over time, however, a ceasefire with the PKK broke down, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began to see the Kurdish leftist parties as a threat.
The growth of ISIS in Syria and Iraq led to clashes between ISIS and groups linked to the PKK. The People Protection Units in Syria, called the YPG, helped save Yazidis from ISIS and resisted in places such as Kobani, Syria.
The YPG is linked to the PKK. As such, Turkey became concerned that the success of the YPG in Syria might inspire Kurds in Turkey. A crackdown occurred after elections, and there were ISIS attacks on Kurds in Turkey.
Eventually, there was also a civil conflict in many Kurdish cities and a PKK uprising in 2015. Turkey’s government began a massive crackdown.
In 2018, Turkey invaded Afrin, Syria, attacking the Kurds there. In 2019, it also attacked the Serakaniye area of Syria, bombing the YPG.
By this time, the YPG had become part of the US-backed SDF in eastern Syria. Turkey began bombing the SDF.
Turkey also escalated its invasion of northern Iraq. Ankara had moved soldiers into northern Iraq to fight the PKK in the 1990s. This took place as Kurds received autonomy in northern Iraq.
The PKK clashed with other Kurdish groups, such as the KDP, which is popular in Erbil and Dohuk in northern Iraq. By 2018, Turkey increased its role in northern Iraq, using drones to attack PKK-affiliated Kurds.
Turkey also began to work more closely with Iran against Iranian Kurdish groups linked to the PKK. This includes PJAK, a Kurdish Iranian group that has links to the PKK.
As such, Ankara’s war on the PKK had moved from a local war in the 1970s to a regional war in the 2000s. This destabilized parts of Syria and Iraq and also threatened to spill over into Iran.
Things are now changing. The peace initiative could help Turkey and Syria. Syria has a new government today. Ahmed Sharaa, the new president, has met with Mazloum Abdi, the head of the SDF.
The SDF is supposed to integrate into the new Syrian army. This would reduce Ankara’s concerns about Syria and the potential links of the PKK to groups in Syria.
In northern Iraq, the Turkish government has enjoyed decent ties with the KDP leadership of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Ankara is more at odds with the Kurdish PUK, a party in northern Iraq that has better ties with the PKK.
As such, Ankara could see the peace initiative as a reason to finally reduce its role in Iraq. This could lead to peace in border areas. Turkey’s role in Iraq has displaced tens of thousands of people.
“In a pivotal video message released Wednesday, Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), reaffirmed the group’s historic departure from armed struggle and reiterated his call for a legislative commission to oversee the peace process with the Turkish state,” Rudaw media in Erbil reported.
Ocalan is moving toward a historic peace and issued a “call for Peace and a Democratic Society.” He has been in contact with Turkey’s left-leaning Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party).
“The DEM Party has been leading a broad, months-long peace initiative to resolve the four-decade conflict, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives – mostly PKK fighters,” Rudaw reported. “Ankara has framed this initiative within its ‘Free-Terror Turkey’ campaign.”
The question is what comes next? Will the PKK and its other factions lay down their arms? What is the “manifesto for a democratic society” that Ocalan has spoken about?
“Society can be free to the extent that the individual is free, and the individual can be free to the extent that society is free,” Ocalan said in his video message, citing “the power of politics and social peace, not weapons.”