More than 40 years of a campaign of terrorism by the PKK may come to a full stop if a new, ambitious plan suggested by Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, an ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party)-led People’s Alliance, succeeds.
The “terror-free initiative,” as it is tentatively called by Bahçeli and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, aims to tackle the issue at a time of new regional opportunities and threats for Türkiye.
The plan, at least for now, focuses on persuading the terrorist group to lay down arms while future steps will likely depend on the actions of the PKK and its affiliates, from a political party involved in the new initiative to the Syrian wing of the group that grew in strength after the unrest began in the neighboring country in 2011.
Bahçeli, a veteran politician who long advocated more pressure on the PKK through military means, signaled the new initiative when he unexpectedly shook hands with lawmakers from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Oct. 1 during the start of new legislative term at Parliament.
Until then, Bahçeli was a staunch opponent of DEM’s alignment with the PKK.
Initially interpreted as a simple act of courtesy, Bahçeli’s handshake took on a new significance on Oct. 22 when he called Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, to dissolve the terrorist group. One day later, Ömer Öcalan, a nephew of the PKK ringleader and a lawmaker for DEM, announced he visited the latter, in a first visit to Öcalan in 43 months.
Ömer Öcalan said his uncle told him that he can bring the “current process” to “a legal and political platform from a platform of conflict.” On Oct. 30, President Erdoğan announced his full support of Bahçeli’s initiative, praising the MHP leader for his brave, smart moves.
On Nov. 5, Bahçeli took his call one step further and said in a speech that Öcalan should benefit from a conditional, temporary release if he makes a speech at the parliamentary group meeting of DEM and openly calls for the PKK to lay down arms and cease any terrorist activity.
The timing of the initiative is still being debated with its critics claiming it is simply a move to steer attention from other issues in the country. However, although they spoke in broad terms regarding the initiative, both Bahçeli and Erdoğan apparently see it as a necessity at a time of regional tensions.
Hours after his historic handshake with DEM lawmakers, Bahçeli told journalists that they were heading into a new era and Türkiye, which pursues peace in the world, should ensure peace for itself as well.
Bahçeli’s remarks were an affirmation of Erdoğan’s earlier call to “strengthen the internal front against Israel’s threat to target Türkiye.” The day Erdoğan made this statement DEM’s co-Chair Tuncer Bakırhan said Türkiye was “neighbor to a region mired in clashes and conflicts and they were unsure where those would spill into.”
The ensuing developments justified Türkiye’s concerns but also heightened the importance of a solution to the PKK’s campaign of terrorism. Israel’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described Kurds as “a victim of oppression from Iran and Turkey” as their natural allies in November and earlier in January, held a phone call with Ilham Ahmed, a senior figure of the YPG, the PKK’s Syria wing, where he reportedly expressed Israel’s support for “rights of Kurds.”
Deteriorating ties between Israel and Türkiye hit rock bottom after a new round of the Palestine-Israel conflict, which began in 2023, and Tel Aviv adopted a threatening tone toward Türkiye’s pro-Palestine stance on the issue.
A PKK/YPG-Israel alliance, though confined to a wishlist of pro-PKK social media accounts for now, can pose a significant security risk to Türkiye, which shares a long border with Syria. The PKK/YPG forced Türkiye to respond with cross-border offensives in the past when it targeted the country’s border towns with attacks.
After Ömer Öcalan’s visit, the Justice Ministry authorized another visit to Öcalan by DEM Party lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder in late December. According to a statement by the party, Öcalan told Buldan and Önder that he was ready to contribute to the initiative.
"Reinforcing Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood is a historic responsibility and is a matter of importance and emergency for all peoples," Öcalan said in his statements quoted by DEM.
The terrorist group PKK, which has killed thousands since it launched its first terror attacks in the 1980s, claims to fight for Kurdish self-rule and brainwashes the Kurdish population concentrated in southeastern Türkiye to draw recruits.
Öcalan said it was essential for all political circles in Türkiye to take the initiative without being confined to "narrow calculations," "act constructive" and "provide a positive contribution" for this new process to succeed. Öcalan said the Parliament he was urged to come to would be "undoubtedly one of the most important grounds for 'this contribution.'"
"Incidents in Gaza and Syria demonstrated that the solution to this problem that is being aggravated by external intervention cannot be delayed any longer. The opposition's contributions and suggestions are valuable to achieve success in this solution," Öcalan said.
"I have the capability and resolve to contribute positively to this new paradigm empowered by Mr. Bahçeli and Mr. Erdoğan. My approach will be shared with the state and political circles. I am ready to take the positive step and make the call. Our efforts will advance the country to the level it deserves and will be a guideline for a democratic transformation. It is a time of peace, democracy and brotherhood for Türkiye and the region," Öcalan added.
Önder and Buldan, accompanied by Ahmet Türk, a former lawmaker and mayor who served in pro-PKK parties for a long time, paid visits to political parties at Parliament to brief them about the developments. They first visited Parliamentary Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş before meeting with Bahçeli himself. Later, they met representatives of the AK Party and the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Özgür Özel. They are expected to meet Öcalan again to report back the parties’ opinions on the initiative.
The DEM delegation also announced their intent to visit Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, incarcerated former co-chairs of DEM’s spiritual predecessor Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP).
Once the meetings were concluded, Öcalan may make the anticipated call but bringing him to Parliament as Bahçeli urged, will require legal amendments. The People’s Alliance already holds a parliamentary majority to pass necessary amendments.
The terror-free initiative involves multiple sides although its proponents insist it should solely focus on Öcalan and his anticipated call to the PKK.
Abdullah Öcalan is the founder of the PKK and one of the most controversial figures in Türkiye for his role in the conception of the group that was behind violent attacks that claimed thousands of lives since the 1980s. For the PKK, he is a revered icon and face of the terrorist group which refers to him simply as “leadership.”
The 75-year-old Öcalan founded PKK in the late seventies and spearheaded the campaign of violence, which began with attacks on civilians and military outposts in the early eighties. For a long time, he remained Türkiye’s most wanted man while the United States, European Union and Western allies of Türkiye designated his group as a terrorist organization.
He constantly changed locations across the Middle East to dodge capture and fled into Europe when Turkish authorities closed in on him.
He was captured in Kenya in 1999 and brought to Türkiye. He was sentenced to death in his lengthy trial but the sentence was commuted to life sentence after Türkiye abolished capital punishment in 2004. Since then, he has been held in Imralı island in the Marmara Sea, in a prison complex where he has been the lone convict for a long time.
Öcalan’s former lieutenants make up the core of PKK’s current leadership and are informally called “Qandil” after the mountain in northern Iraq where they are believed to be in hiding. An umbrella body of the PKK’s different wings said they would act in accordance with the process “shaped by our leader,” in reference to Öcalan.
In Syria, the PKK’s local wing YPG is another component of the terrorism problem. The YPG already faces pressure from the Syrian National Army (SNA), which captured several towns from the terrorist group. Its leader Ferhat Abdi Şahin appears backing the initiative and recently said it would have “a positive impact.” Both Türkiye and the new rulers of post-Assad Syria call for the group to dissolve itself.
Türkiye tried its hand in resolving the PKK issue as early as the 1990s. President Turgut Özal took the first concrete steps for a new way to resolve the problem and reached out to Iraqi Kurdish leaders viewed as close to the terrorist group. It was a time when DEM’s predecessors first won seats in the Turkish Parliament. Özal favored a “civilian” solution to the problem. He sought to address the problems the PKK exploited to advance its own agenda, such as more rights to Türkiye’s Kurdish community.
Özal’s efforts partially paid off when the PKK briefly declared a “cease-fire.”
However, several violent terror attacks in the same decade and Özal’s death in 1993 hindered this fledgling process that would also reportedly include a general pardon for convicted PKK members.
Terror attacks continued until Öcalan’s capture. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the PKK reduced its terrorism campaign before another flare-up in violence.
Starting from 2012, the state launched a new process that was informally called the “reconciliation process.” The process cautiously proceeded and the government offered expansion of rights for the Kurdish community, especially in education in their own language. The PKK scaled back its activities again but this process ultimately collapsed too in 2015.
The PKK resumed its campaign and moved attacks from rural parts of the country to urban centers in the southeast, which hosts a predominantly Kurdish population. In response, Türkiye intensified counterterrorism operations and in the past decade, stepped up aerial strikes and limited cross-border offensives to eradicate terrorists in Türkiye, Iraq and Syria.
Nowadays, the PKK’s attacks inside Türkiye are almost non-existent. However, a deadly attack on a major Turkish aerospace company in the capital Ankara one day after Bahçeli repeated his call to Öcalan renewed concerns about the PKK threat.
