In recent years, Turkey has been witnessing its worst economic crisis since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power more than two decades ago.
The Turkish economy, one of the largest in the Middle East, suffered a recession in 2024 after successive drops in growth and as Erdoğan’s government struggled to tackle the collapsing currency, skyrocketing prices, and rising interest rates.
The severe economic crisis, which has drastically affected people’s purchasing power, has been eroding Erdoğan’s popularity amid rising pressure from the opposition at home and mounting regional and international challenges.
However, the nearly four-decade war to end a Kurdish rebellion led by the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) still stands out as one of the main challenges to Turkey’s long-term stability.
To consolidate his political platform and probably secure another five years in power, Erdoğan needs to find a way to halt this conflict that has spanned decades, taken over 40,000 lives, and shaped the political landscape of the region.
In order to do so, he needs to depart from the long-standing policy of dismissing the PKK as a terrorist group and engage with it in a negotiated settlement of the insurgency.
Something like this came in the carefully orchestrated initiative by his trusted ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, who suggested that PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, in prison for his role in leading the Kurdish insurgency, could see his conditions eased if he calls on the group to lay down its arms.
This moment marked a profound shift in the Turkish state’s approach to the Kurdish issue, which has played a crucial role in Turkey’s politics for the last century and remains a thorn in the side of Middle East stability
The PKK declared a ceasefire with Turkey on 1 March following a landmark call by Ocalan asking the group to disband and end its armed struggle. The call came after months of shuttle negotiations involving Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party and the jailed leader with Erdoğan’s implicit blessing.
“In order to pave the way for the implementation of leader Apo’s call for peace and a democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK’s executive committee said, referring to Ocalan by his name in popular Kurdish culture.
“We agree with the content of the call, and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee said in an announcement issued from its base in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” it added.
Erdoğan’s response was understandably muted, only describing Ocalan’s appeal without mentioning his name as a “historic opportunity.” He said that Turkey would “keep a close watch” to make sure that the talks to end the Kurdish insurgency were “brought to a successful conclusion.”
But in what seems to be a division of labour strategy, Turkish government officials also sought to downplay the rapprochement and even crank up pressure on the PKK in order to extract more concessions.
Turkish Vice-President Cevdet Yilmaz wrote on X that “the dissolution of the terrorist organisation [the PKK] without any bargain means a new environment and a new period in terms of development and democracy, as well as security.”
Minister of National Defence Yaşar Güler further dialled down the PKK’s move, saying that the group should lay down its arms and that issues such as a ceasefire should not be put on the agenda.
“The PKK and all its extensions operating under different names should be dissolved,” he said.
Speaker of the Turkish Parliament Numan Kurtulmuş dismissed claims that the ruling AKP Party was taking advantage of the PKK’s gesture for political gain and suggested the parliament should stand as “the main venue for a dialogue” over the process that follows.
Last week, Turkey said it was still bombing PKK insurgents in Iraq and Syria despite the declared ceasefire. Defence Ministry Spokesman Zeki Akturk said the military would “continue its fight against terrorism with determination and resolve until there is not a single terrorist left.”
Observers have expected double talk, confusion, and turmoil within the ranks of the AKP following the PKK’s announcement and predicted that ultimately Erdoğan would have to end decades of conflict with Turkey’s Kurdish population.
Ankara has emphatically rejected the idea of talking to the PKK, which has been listed as a terrorist group, but now it will need to start talking to its leaders irrespective of Turkey’s historic narrative about the group and the aspirations of the Kurds in general.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, and the European Union, has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for the Kurds, who account for around 20 per cent of Turkey’s 85 million people.
Throughout the bloody conflict, the group’s leadership has showed moderation and made efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict but to no avail.
In 2015, a two-year ceasefire between Turkey’s government and the PKK collapsed largely due to a failure to address the root causes of the Kurdish problem in Turkey and a lack of trust between the two sides that hampered efforts to move peace forward.
Each side blamed the other for the failure, and amid continuous anti-Kurdish Turkish nationalism the Turkish Army stepped up military operations in northern Iraq and northern Syria in pursuit of PKK fighters operating against Turkey from bases there.
There are therefore legitimate grounds for scepticism that the new ceasefire will produce results unless Erdoğan and his government show genuine efforts to resolve the Kurdish issue in Turkey without the usual rhetoric of unity and a shared history between Turks and Kurds.
The resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, one of the world’s longest conflicts, through dialogue will have a tremendously positive impact on the entire Middle East, which is suffering from wars, civil strife, and sectarian violence that have plunged the region into geopolitical turmoil.
Ocalan’s and the PKK’s peaceful overtures have been welcomed by Kurds across the region, signalling a historic departure from armed struggle by a large ethnic group across four Middle Eastern nations that has fought for decades for its right of self-determination.
In Iraq, leaders of the Kurdistan Region (KR) welcomed Ocalan’s call to his followers to disarm and disband. The move was hailed as a significant step towards lasting peace in Turkey and a democratic resolution to the Kurdish issue.
Masoud Barzani, the former head of the KR government, welcomed the move as the “only correct way” to resolve the issue and expressed his readiness to play a role in “advancing the peace process in Turkey.”
The ruling authorities in the Kurdish enclave of northeastern Syria welcomed Ocalan’s landmark call. Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), hailed the move as opening the way for a peaceful political process in the ethnically divided country.
The new peaceful opinion among the Kurds is also central to the dream of a Greater Kurdistan, which is entertained by millions of Kurds living in these four distinct yet interconnected territories within a single national entity.
It may affect an array of issues related to Turkey’s ties to neighbouring countries, especially Iraq and Syria. It will provide a template for effective conflict resolution in this turbulent region and beyond.
Indeed, the PKK-declared ceasefire in Turkey had an immediate effect in Syria when the SDF signed an agreement with Syria’s new leadership to integrate its fighters into the new state structure, which also addresses Ankara’s security concerns in Syria.
The PKK ceasefire will also have a positive impact on Turkey’s relationships with Iraq, where the Turkish Army has been conducting military incursions and aerial attacks against PKK bases in the northern enclave of Kurdistan.
A halt in the operations will help to improve Ankara’s political and economic ties with both Baghdad and Erbil and in particular the construction of the ambitious 1,200 km Development Road Project that connects southern Iraq to Turkey.
In order for the olive branch not to drop from the PKK’s hand and for the ceasefire to become a lasting peace, Erdoğan and the Turkish establishment must take drastic steps to allow the country’s Kurdish population to enjoy all the political and economic rights that make them equal with Turkish citizens.
This will require concrete measures, such as accommodating the disarmed and newly de-radicalised PKK into the democratic political process in order to allow its reorientation in the state system.
A constitutional amendment will therefore be needed to recognise the Kurds’ national identity and culture and end the state’s discriminatory and sometimes violent policies that have had a decisive influence in shaping its relations with the Kurds.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 20 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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