PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s Historic Call For Peace and Disarmament: A Real Chance For The Kurdish-Turkish Realignment.

The Call for Disarmament

• Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has called for the group’s militants to lay down arms and disband, marking the most significant peace overture in a decade.

• His statement follows months of backchannel diplomacy between Ankara and Kurdish intermediaries, as Turkey’s leadership tests the waters for a negotiated end to the 40-year insurgency.

• If the PKK fully disarms, it would end one of the Middle East’s longest-running conflicts, which has claimed over 40,000 lives since the 1980s.

• Öcalan framed his call as a “historical responsibility”, signaling that the PKK’s objectives should now be pursued through political means rather than armed struggle.

• While Ankara has not officially announced negotiations, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his nationalist ally Devlet Bahçeli have given subtle indications that they are open to a process.

• Bahçeli, long a hardline opponent of the PKK, unexpectedly proposed in late 2024 that Öcalan could be granted parole if the PKK renounces violence and dissolves—a move that shocked even Turkish nationalists.

• Erdoğan cautiously praised the proposal as “courageous and wise.”

• The timing is no coincidence: with the insurgency weakening, Turkey has an opportunity to permanently reshape its Kurdish policy and regional power dynamics.

Why Now? Four Forces that drove the current dynamic.

• 1. The Regional Shift: Post-Assad Syria, Threat of Israeli Interference And Sabotage and U.S. Recalibrations.

• The Middle East’s shifting geopolitical landscape incentivizes Turkey to resolve its Kurdish conflict.

• The fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 has led to a new political order emerging in Syria, one that presents both risks and opportunities for Ankara.

• For the first time, Turkey has a chance to shape the future of northern Syria without Assad’s interference.

• If the PKK disbands, Ankara could soften its stance toward Syrian Kurds, moving from outright hostility to cautious engagement.

• The United States is also recalibrating its posture in the region, with the start of a new Trump administration likely to affect U.S. policy on Syria.

• Washington’s longstanding alliance with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—a Kurdish-led force that has fought ISIS—has been a major irritant in U.S.-Turkey relations.

• If the PKK renounces violence and Kurdish fighters in Syria distance themselves from the PKK, Turkey’s opposition to the SDF could lessen, removing a key obstacle in U.S.-Turkey ties.

• In addition, normalization with Syria’s Kurds would weaken the opportunity for Israeli interference.

• Israeli leaders have previously outlined their Syria foreign policy as encouraging factionalism (cloaked as protecting the right to self-rule by ethnic minorities.)

• Israeli leaders have calculated that a decentralized and weak Syria (with significant Kurdish counterweight to Turkish influence) is preferable to a centralized stable state aligned with Turkey.

• Turkey successfully normalizing ties with Syrian Kurds (and denying space for friction causing interference) would prove this calculus wrong.

• With that said, in the long-term (and even without the Turkish-Kurdish normalization in Syria) it is always better for Israel to have Syria strong and orderly enough to: 1) resist Iranian influence and, 2) shut down extremist terrorist cells.

• (side note: as discussed in yesterday’s post however, Israel is already hedging its bets - diversifying from a sole reliance on Kurdish pushback to ostensibly promoting self-determination by the Syrian Druze community. Though these overtures have already been rejected by the said communities’ leaders - condemning Israeli invasion of southern Syria.)

• 2. Erdoğan’s Political Survival.

• Erdoğan is facing mounting domestic pressures, both politically and economically.

• With Turkey’s next elections set for 2028, the president needs Kurdish parliamentary support to push constitutional changes allowing him to extend his rule.

• The pro-Kurdish DEM Party holds significant seats in parliament, and a peace process could secure their backing in exchange for political concessions to Turkey’s Kurds.

• Additionally, the economic burden of military operations against the PKK has grown unsustainable.

• Turkey is grappling with high inflation, a weakening lira, and a post-COVID recovery that remains fragile.

• Ending the war would reduce military expenditures and stabilize the country’s restive Kurdish southeast (and attract foreign investment into said region).

• Erdoğan has used peace talks strategically before—most notably in 2013 when he engaged in negotiations with Öcalan to shore up political alliances before abruptly abandoning the process in 2015 for electoral gain.

• This time, however, the stakes are higher, and Erdoğan’s room for maneuver is shrinking.

• 3. The PKK’s Strategic Weakening.

• On the Kurdish side, the PKK is militarily exhausted.

• Turkish drone warfare, expanded military incursions into northern Iraq, and cooperation between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdish leaders ( like the KRG President Nechirvan Barzani) have steadily eroded the PKK’s operational capacity.

• Many PKK strongholds in the Qandil mountains have been heavily targeted, and the group has suffered high attrition rates in both Syria and Iraq.

• Additionally, the Kurdish autonomy in Northern Iraq, the KRG has tightened pressure on the PKK, signaling that it no longer wants its territory used as a base for attacks on Turkey.

• Faced with declining military effectiveness and growing diplomatic isolation, Öcalan and the PKK’s leadership may see disarmament as the least bad option—allowing the movement to continue through political channels rather than facing outright destruction.

Implications for the Kurds in Syria and Iraq

• A peace deal would fundamentally reshape the Kurdish question across the region, particularly in Syria and Iraq.

• Syrian Kurds (Rojava/Northeast Syria):
  The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led force that has administered northeast Syria with U.S. backing, is deeply affected by Öcalan’s announcement.

• The SDF’s leadership has long denied being an extension of the PKK, but its ideological and leadership ties to Öcalan’s movement have been a sticking point for Turkey.

• If the PKK truly disbands, the SDF could distance itself from the PKK entirely, opening the door for a new Turkish policy toward Syrian Kurds.

• Turkish officials have privately indicated that if Öcalan’s peace call materializes, Ankara would be open to Syrian Kurds retaining some level of local governance within Syria, provided the SDF severs all links to the PKK and cooperates on border security.

• This could finally secure Kurdish self-rule in Syria—not as an independent state, but as a recognized political entity within the Syrian framework.

• Iraqi Kurds (KRG and PKK Presence in Iraq):
  For the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, Öcalan’s peace bid is a strategic victory.

• The KRG’s ruling party (the Barzani-led KDP) has been at odds with the PKK for decades, seeing it as both a military liability and a rival for Kurdish leadership.

• If the PKK disbands, Turkey would likely scale back its military presence in northern Iraq, reducing the cycle of airstrikes and cross-border operations that have destabilized the region.

• This would strengthen the KRG’s autonomy and allow it to consolidate power in Kurdish areas such as Sinjar, which have been contested by PKK-affiliated militias.

Turkey’s Security Shift: From Counterinsurgency to Regional Power Projection.

• A PKK ceasefire would enable Turkey to redirect military resources away from counterinsurgency and toward regional power projection.

• With a stabilized Kurdish southeast, Ankara could:

• 1) Expand its focus on containing Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria.

• 2) Strengthen its strategic position within NATO by demonstrating domestic stability.

• 3) Strengthen its chances to negotiate closer ties (if not outright membership of) with the EU - for many years one of the main sticking points in the potential Turkish accession to EU membership was the frequency of cross-border terrorism in Turkish Southeast.

• The EU cannot have a common borderless market with a country facing frequent cross-border terrorist attacks, and this blocker will now go away.

• 4) Leverage a peace deal to deepen economic ties with Iraqi Kurdistan, particularly in energy transit.

• Overall, this is a rare geopolitical moment where Kurdish-Turkish peace is viable.

• If managed correctly, it could transform the Kurdish question from a source of perpetual conflict into a pillar of regional stability.

• The PKK’s disarmament, Kurdish autonomy in Syria, and Turkey’s normalization with its Kurdish population would restructure power balances across the Middle East—a shift that benefits Turkey, the Kurds, and Washington alike.