Peace with the Kurds in Turkey: What about It?

In this incisive analysis, political scientist Professor Cengiz Aktar examines Ankara’s latest initiative toward the Kurds, arguing that what has been presented as a peace process is instead a populist performance of reconciliation. Professor Aktar shows how Turkey’s government frames “brotherhood,” “national unity,” and “terror-free Turkey” as harmonious goals, even though such populist language masks structural inequalities and omits democratic guarantees for Kurdish identity. With Abdullah Öcalan’s call for dissolution of the PKK left unreciprocated, and no mechanisms for Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR), truth-seeking, or legal reform, Professor Aktar warns that the process risks being symbolic rather than transformative. He suggests that populism here functions not as conflict resolution, but as political containment — strengthening autocratic power while offering no durable settlement.

By Cengiz Aktar

Turkey’s long-running conflicts with its ethnic and/or religious groups have been on the permanent agenda for more than a century. Various attempts by successive rulers to suppress or resolve these conflicts have drawn the attention of Turkey watchers and international public opinion throughout this period.

Interestingly, the latest initiative by the Ankara regime toward the Kurds—although seemingly ground-breaking at first glance—has largely gone unnoticed by global media outlets, and even more so by the wider public abroad. Only Western governments have, rather unenthusiastically, welcomed the developments.

Why such a lack of interest? Most likely because there is no serious or lasting peace perspective visible at the end of the process.

The genocide in Gaza, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and the massacres and famine in Sudan are now almost entirely dominating the headlines. Nevertheless, a genuine “Kurdish peace” would normally contain—at least partially—the seeds of region-wide normalization. Yet no one seems to detect such a dynamic in Ankara’s initiative, and rightly so.

Let us briefly recall the background.

Since the surprise launch of the so-called “process” on October 1, 2024, a highly unusual modus operandi has been underway to address this decades-old military conflict.

First, contrary to well-established conflict-resolution practices, the parties involved are not on equal footing. The Kurdish leader remains in prison and is not free in his movements or actions. That asymmetry alone speaks volumes about the genuineness of the process.

Since his capture and imprisonment twenty-five years ago, Ankara has approached Abdullah Öcalan three times with the same objective: to pressure him to end the armed struggle and push for the PKK’s dissolution. This time, it appears to have worked.

Indeed, on February 27, Öcalan declared that the rebel group had “completed its life cycle” and called for its dissolution, potentially signaling the end of a decades-long conflict that claimed at least 50,000 lives—around 40,000 of them Kurdish. 

His “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society” was broadcast to the public at a hotel in Istanbul. In return, the plea for “legal and political regulations for dissolution and disarmament,” which was not included in the written call, was later added verbally.

Compared to the previous “peace” initiative of 2013, there is a clear regression. At that time, Öcalan linked the resolution of the Kurdish issue to the PKK’s demobilization, while proposing a broader, holistic framework. Today, there is no longer any connection between the dismantlement of the PKK and a lasting political solution to the Kurdish question. Öcalan’s major unilateral concession thus clearly signals that the entire scenario is being crafted by the authorities.

Second, in line with this fundamental imbalance, the scenario assumes that the Kurdish issue will be resolved within a vague framework of “national solidarity, brotherhood, and democracy,” falling far short of the structural changes required for equal citizenship and the recognition of Kurdish identity. Yet it aligns perfectly with a populist rhetoric that casually pairs concepts that in fact cancel each other out, such as “brotherhood” and “democracy.” 

In the regime’s daily populist rhetoric, the process is laconically labeled “terror-free Turkey”—and nothing more. Worse, Öcalan now seems to echo this line by consistently promoting a “brotherhood” narrative in which Turkishness clearly takes precedence.

Within this framework, the regime may make symbolic gestures of goodwill but will never undertake ground-breaking reforms that would establish the constitutional, legal, and political foundations of an equal citizenship. 

Kurds, under this logic, can only become full-fledged citizens on the condition that they dissolve into the Turkish magma. Accordingly, since the Öcalan call on late February, not a single meaningful step has been undertaken by the regime toward the Kurds.

Third, established conflict-resolution mechanisms and expert involvement are entirely absent from the Turkish process—whether in the form of joint commissions or specialized bodies within relevant public institutions.

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR)—the return of ex-combatants to civilian life through weapons collection, disbandment of armed groups, and social and economic reintegration—is not part of the process. Likewise, no provision has been made for truth and reconciliation.

All in all, within this unusual conflict-resolution architecture, the only concrete step taken by Ankara has been the establishment of an advisory parliamentary commission until the end of 2025, which meets behind closed doors and in which regime parties hold an absolute majority. Its agenda does not include, for example, a crucial Kurdish demand: the official recognition of the Kurdish language.

As for the opposition—including the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—the prevailing view seems to be that the process would automatically trigger broader democratization. As if history had ever shown a non-democratic regime transforming into a democracy through the smooth management of peacebuilding with an ostracized people—in this case, the Kurds. Simply because such a management requires as a pre-condition, a functioning democracy. 

The negative consequences of this clumsy process are already looming. While PKK circles have complied with the call of their “supreme leader” Öcalan, the Kurdish street remains profoundly skeptical. People welcome the official end of the armed struggle for its potential to spare the lives of their children—but no more than that.

Overall, the process is likely to strengthen Erdoğan and the regime bloc, allowing it to reap the political benefits of a “terror-free Turkey,” while weakening if not dismissing the Kurdish Political Movement. This carries the risk of a violent rejection of Kurdish “surrender” by radical—or less radical—segments of Kurdish polity.

Beyond this unfolding drama, Ankara’s ultimate objective remains the dissolution of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), led by Syrian Kurds and backed by a 100,000-strong, NATO-trained and equipped military force.

Nevertheless, the integration of this force into the nascent Syrian army appears to be the only realistic option for Damascus, for the AANES, and for the international coalition supporting the entity, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Saudi Arabia. Negotiations among all actors are underway despite Turkey’s stubborn opposition.

The Turkish state has never viewed the Kurdish issue as anything other than a security problem—whether inside Turkey or in neighboring countries. That reflex will not change unless Ankara is forced to accept the Rojava fait accompli, thereby swallowing both the empowerment and the legitimacy of a Kurdish-led polity in its immediate neighborhood and across the wider region.