Analysis: PKK recalibrates from armed struggle to politics in Turkiye

“We voluntarily destruct our weapons … arsenic a measurement of goodwill and determination,” said elder Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) person Bese Hozat, speaking successful beforehand of a gathering of the group’s fighters.

The footage, filmed past Friday successful the bluish Iraqi metropolis of Sulaimaniyah, past shows the fighters – astir 30 of them – placing their weapons wrong a cauldron, where they were acceptable alight.

The ceremonial whitethorn person been symbolic, but it capped what mightiness beryllium 1 of the most consequential periods successful Turkiye’s caller governmental history. It wraps up a cautiously planned series of gestures and messages, and shows that some sides are not conscionable coordinating symbolically, but are besides politically aligned successful their intent to determination from equipped struggle to governmental dialogue.

The choreography of the build-up to the ceremonial unfolded with singular precision, revealing some governmental coordination and calculated restraint. Such an alignment would person been intolerable without communal designation betwixt the PKK and Turkiye of the value of what was astir to happen, arsenic good arsenic the consequences of immoderate failure.

On July 7, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received his country’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party delegation for the 2nd clip successful 4 months. A smiling radical photograph from the gathering was wide circulated, signalling some the normalisation of dialog and the symbolic support of the process astatine the highest level.

Two days later, connected July 9, Abdullah Ocalan – the imprisoned PKK person and laminitis – appeared successful a seven-minute video released by ANF, the PKK’s affiliated media outlet. It marked his archetypal nationalist ocular quality successful 26 years and carried a elemental but historical message: The clip for arms has ended.

In it, Ocalan emphasised that the movement’s archetypal aim, the designation of Kurdish identity, had been achieved, and that governmental engagement indispensable present regenerate equipped resistance. The connection was arsenic overmuch to the PKK arsenic it was to the public.

Lastly, connected July 13, Erdogan addressed the governing AK Party’s retreat, reaffirming his committedness to the disarmament process and announcing that a parliamentary committee would beryllium established to code its ineligible framework. His connection aimed to reassure the broader public, particularly his supporters, that the process would fortify nationalist untiy and benefits each of Turkiye’s citizens, immoderate their ethnicity.

Message to the Kurdish public

Ocalan’s uncommon video connection aimed to reassure his Kurdish supporters that this was not a defeat, but a recalibration: a displacement from equipped conflict to governmental engagement. The connection was cautiously measured and stripped of triumphalism; it sought to redefine the past, alternatively than glorify it.

The dignified code of the weapons-burning ceremonial allowed some the PKK and authorities narratives to coexist. It did not alienate those who had sacrificed for the PKK’s conflict – activists, politicians successful situation oregon exile, and the families of the disappeared. Instead, it signalled that their voices had been heard.

Despite his years of isolation, Ocalan’s words inactive transportation weight. Not lone due to the fact that of his symbolic authority, but due to the fact that his connection reflects what galore Kurds present seek: dignity without martyrdom, a dependable without violence, and a aboriginal beyond equipped struggle.

Public enactment for disarmament is growing, adjacent among those agelong sceptical of the state’s intent. Recent surveys amusement that much than 90 percent of DEM voters, arsenic good arsenic those who place arsenic Kurdish oregon Zaza (a Kurdish-adjacent number group) successful Turkiye, enactment the process. Belief that the PKK volition afloat disarm is besides importantly higher than the nationalist average.

The PKK’s determination to disarm is not a retreat but a recalibration.

Since its founding successful 1978, the radical has waged a protracted equipped conflict against the Turkish state, demanding autonomy and rights for Kurds. But aft decades of rebellion, the determination scenery has changed.

In bluish Iraq and Syria, the PKK’s operational abstraction has altered. While the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a cardinal PKK-linked actor, remains progressive successful northeastern Syria, its aboriginal hinges connected shifting US commitments and delicate understandings with the caller authorities successful Damascus, an state of Turkiye.

At the aforesaid time, Iran’s weakening determination influence, sustained Turkish subject pressure, and a quiescent but increasing penchant among Western actors for a unchangeable Turkiye person each contributed to reshaping the group’s strategical calculus.

Crucially, this recalibration does not struggle with the United States and Israel’s halfway interests successful curbing Iranian power and maintaining a manageable presumption quo successful Syria.

Against this backdrop, a disarmed and politically engaged Kurdish question successful Turkiye is not an isolated anomaly. In this context, the PKK has opted to measurement disconnected the battlefield and into the governmental arena. As Ocalan expressed successful his July 9 message, “I judge successful the spot of peace, not the unit of arms.”

The weapons-burning ceremonial is not the extremity of the disarmament process. A Turkish parliamentary committee is expected to specify the conditions for the reintegration of PKK fighters into civilian and governmental beingness successful Turkiye, portion a verification mechanics involving the Turkish Armed Forces and quality bureau volition show disarmament and contented a study to usher further steps.

Hozat, the PKK elder leader, framed the ceremonial arsenic a governmental milestone, and reaffirmed the group’s ambition to participate civilian politics, expressing an purpose to go “pioneers of antiauthoritarian authorities successful Amed [Diyarbakir], Ankara, and Istanbul” – a deliberate notation to cardinal centres of Kurdish practice successful Turkiye and nationalist governmental power.

Yet this modulation hinges connected broad ineligible reforms and credible guarantees that are some socially and politically viable, and civilian nine groups and humanitarian organisations successful Turkiye are apt to play an progressive relation successful the forthcoming stages of afloat disarmament.

Turkish governmental support

In Turkiye, determination is wide buy-in for the bid process with the PKK from crossed the governmental spectrum.

This is mostly due to the fact that the process benefits astir each governmental actors by reducing the securitised governmental climate, easing judicial pressure, and offering a accidental to reset profoundly polarised governance.

With “terrorism” charges having been utilized expansively successful caller years, adjacent members of the absorption Republican People’s Party (CHP) person recovered themselves entangled successful ineligible problems. In this context, a de-escalation appeals to many, including enactment leaders specified arsenic Ozgur Ozel and Ekrem Imamoglu, adjacent if galore stay wary of the AK Party’s intentions. For galore CHP supporters, what they presumption arsenic the contradiction of a reconciliation effort with the PKK unfolding alongside a clampdown connected absorption mayors is hard to ignore.

Other Turkish parties person been supportive, contempt coming from antithetic governmental traditions. The DEM Party has, of course, been a cardinal portion of the negotiations and the messaging that a leafage has been turned connected the past.

It is notable that the radical that the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) – possibly the Turkish governmental enactment astir opposed to the DEM Party and agelong a staunch hostile of immoderate rapprochement with Kurdish nationalist groups – has besides publically backed the process, and so has besides been heavy progressive successful the choreography successful the past fewer months.

Its leader, Devlet Bahceli, has been beforehand and centre successful the process, formally inviting Ocalan to dissolve the PKK and reaching retired to DEM members of parliament. His pragmatic stance has stemmed from his content that the extremity of the PKK’s equipped run aligns with nationalist interests. In fact, delays successful the process were yet flooded with the assistance of the MHP leader.

And the AK Party has steered the bid process done immoderate of its cardinal figures, including Efkan Ala, a erstwhile interior curate and 1 of Erdogan’s most-trusted governmental allies. Erdogan has personally taken connected the task of normalising the sermon of making bid with the PKK.

Still, not everyone successful the enactment whitethorn beryllium connected board. Years of struggle with the PKK and attacks from the group, securitised rhetoric, the criminalisation of DEM-aligned actors, and the stigma surrounding immoderate practice with the DEM Party person near heavy interior reservations. Stepping distant from that presumption is not easy, adjacent if Erdogan has acceptable a wide tone, signalling steadfast committedness from the precise apical of the Turkish establishment.

Potential pitfalls

This is not a accepted bid process, nor is it a one-sided enactment of capitulation.

Rather, it marks a convergence – tenuous, complex, and partial – betwixt 2 longstanding adversaries.

Spoilers beryllium – wrong the state, among governmental factions, and crossed the borderline – but truthful far, nary has derailed the process.

But those tied to the warfare economy, ideological hardliners, oregon actors who thrive successful a securitised clime mightiness yet try, adjacent if the process has already weathered a batch of imaginable pitfalls, including the Turkish subject bombing PKK positions successful March and determination turbulence successful the signifier of the warfare betwixt Israel and Iran.

However, that does not mean that nary aboriginal problems could arise. What lies up whitethorn beryllium adjacent harder. Without meaningful governmental reforms oregon guarantees, the abstraction opened up by disarmament whitethorn rapidly constrictive again.

On the Kurdish governmental side, galore questions besides inactive remain.

DEM Co-Chair Tuncer Bakirhan, speaking successful an interrogation with the Kurdish media outlet Rudaw past Wednesday, emphasised that symbolic gestures indispensable beryllium followed by organization action.

“We person submitted our proposals to the talker of parliament,” helium noted, including mechanisms for reintegrating erstwhile militants into governmental and civilian life. “We don’t request to dwell connected the details — those volition follow. But determination indispensable beryllium clarity: What happens to those who disarm? Where bash they go? What protections volition they have? These are not trivialities; they are the instauration of a credible peace.”

He is close to constituent retired that disarmament unsocial is not enough; it is simply the starting point. The existent question is what comes next.

What volition hap to those imprisoned connected “terror” charges, whether for governmental reasons oregon past engagement successful equipped struggle?

What astir the fighters inactive successful the mountains, the families stranded and the governmental figures exiled successful Iraq, Europe oregon elsewhere? And what astir the broader ecosystem: civilian nine actors, journalists, and others agelong caught successful the grey zones of criminalisation?

For the PKK’s disarmament to scope this point, the close home and geopolitical conditions had to align, and today, they have.

Weapons volition beryllium burned, and the equipped chapter, perchance including the Syrian front, arsenic hinted by ongoing but hard negotiations betwixt the SDF and Damascus, volition travel to a adjacent wrong Turkiye’s borders. But from this constituent on, typical politics, diplomacy, and nationalist deliberation volition substance much than ever.

It marks a historical threshold. What follows volition beryllium not connected symbols, but connected substance: connected the courageousness to legislate, to decentralise power, and to spot society’s readiness for coexistence.

No 1 tin afloat foretell however the portion volition evolve, and astir actors are apt preparing for aggregate scenarios, not a azygous roadmap.

The semipermanent interaction of this determination remains unclear and possibly deliberately so.