The following article discusses the ongoing issue of the Kurdish minority within Turkey and the Kurdistan Worker’s party’s insurgency within the country, focusing on the current ceasefire recently put in place and its potential impact on peace.
On the 27th of February 2025 the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, called for a ceasefire. This ceasefire could potentially bring about an end to an insurgency against the Turkish State since 1984 which aimed to carve out an independent Kurdish state for the ethnic Kurds within Turkey. This conflict has had considerable ramifications for the stability of the Turkish state, with over 40,000 having lost their lives since its inception. This long and brutal conflict could be coming to an end, but will this fragile peace hold the test of time?
The Turkish government has consistently attempted to force the assimilation of the Kurdish people into wider Turkish society, having banned the Kurdish language following the 1980 Turkish military coup and only lifting the complete ban in 1991, to this day the Kurdish language is prohibited for use as an instruction language in private or public schools. Additionally, throughout the 1990s to early 2000s political parties that represented Kurdish interests were banned. The Kurdish people have also been subject to internal displacement; during the 1980s and 1990s more than 3,000 villages were wiped from the map, with 378,335 individuals forcibly displaced from 1980-1998. This could be described as forced integration and assimilation, frequently being reported by the UNHCR as human rights violations.
The election of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2003 brought many changes to the relationship between the PKK and the Turkish government. In 2004, after the PKK claimed that the government had ignored their calls for negotiations, the insurgency resumed and continued until 2009. That year, the Turkish government launched its first Kurdish-language TV channel, followed by the Kurdish Initiative, which included plans to restore Kurdish villages’ original names that had been replaced with Turkish ones. However, this effort collapsed after the Turkish Constitutional Court banned the pro-Kurdish opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), leading to nationwide riots by Kurds. A period of violence persisted, coinciding with the start of the Syrian Civil War, until 2012.
in 2012 negotiations between Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, and the Turkish government began, resulting in the PKK’s withdrawal to northern Iraq on the 25th of April 2013. This peace was short lived, the subsequent Kobani protests (related to the 2014 siege of Kobani by Islamic state and the Turkish government’s response) resulted in hostilities resuming, with Turkey attacking Kurdish militias in Syria, escalating the conflict, this included cross border operations with Syrian allies to push back Kurdish PKK fighters in Northern Syria and Iraq, with similar offensives taking place in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria until 2022.
How this conflict held Turkey back – The European Union
Turkey has long sought to join the European Union, beginning its accession process in 1987 with the submission of its formal membership application. Negotiations officially began in 2005 but quickly stalled in 2006. Relations between the EU and Turkey have remained strained, particularly after the 2016 coup attempt and President Erdoğan’s subsequent crackdown on supporters. Since then, no significant negotiations have taken place. On March 13, 2019, the European Parliament unanimously voted to suspend accession talks.
This issue is closely tied to the Kurdish conflict. The EU classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization, and the ongoing PKK activity—along with the Turkish government’s response, including crackdowns and mass arrests of individuals linked to the HDP political party, including members of parliament since 2016—has been viewed by the EU as a sign of democratic backsliding. Further concerns arose in 2017 with Turkey’s transition to a presidential system, which abolished the position of Prime Minister and established an executive presidency. This shift was seen as another step away from democratic norms, as the new system did not align with the Copenhagen Criteria—the standards required for EU membership.
One other part of the Copenhagen Criteria is the treatment of minorities within the constituent country, this is outlayed in the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, of which Turkey is not a signatory. The ongoing issues with the Kurdish minority provide another reason for the EU not to let Turkey in; solving this could long term allow for Turkey’s accession into the European framework.
The final truce?
Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, who was jailed in 1999, has on the 27th of February called for the dissolution of the PKK as an armed group, stating that “all groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.” This is a dramatic change in the situation and signals a normalisation of relations between Ankara and the Kurdish population. The pro government MP and leader of the ultra-nationalist Nationalism Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli launched an initiative to bring the conflict to an end.
This move is particularly astonishing, as Bahçeli was one of the more prominent critics of the PKK, calling it a “separatist terrorist organisation”, following the historic call from Öcalan to disband the PKK, he expressed gratitude, now stating that the PKK’s response was an act of “organisational consistency that benefits everyone”. Whilst this is positive news, the wider question of Kurdish minority rights and their ability to have a cultural difference from the majority is still a question. As previously stated there have been several peace processes, including one in 2013 which had similar starts to this one, with Öcalan penning a letter that called for the end to the armed struggle, this did not succeed and resulted in the continuation of hostilities between the PKK and the Turkish government so it remains to be seen if twelve years later a just peace can be realised. Whilst this new initiative is indeed a positive step towards peace, particularly with the right wing of Turkish politics through Devlet Bahçeli taking a leading role, this is still the very early stages of peace for a conflict that has been going on for several decades.
Is this a true turning point?
Kurdish statehood is still quite unlikely; however with the cessation of hostilities comes the potential for more positive reforms that will increase the status of the Kurdish peoples throughout the country. It is important to note that, following the fall of the Assad government in Syria, Syrian Kurds are still fighting Turkish-backed forces in North East Syria. This reality could make the peace process uneasy, with President Erdoğan also calling for PKK affiliates to disarm in Iraq and Syria. This has been followed by further clashes along the Euphrates river between the Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Turkish backed Syrian National Army over the Tishreen dam, seen as a strategic gateway to the border city of Kobani.
This conflict in Syria against the Kurds in Syria has a key role to play in the peace process between the Turkish Kurds and the government in Ankara; if Turkey is seen to be taking advantage of the situation and limiting/ attempting to take over parts of Kurdish Syria this would limit the Turkish Kurds confidence in getting a political settlement from Ankara. This could consequently force the PKK back to a fighting stance. The Syrian Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi recently stated, “if there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria“.
A further issue that has to be mentioned in the peace process is the removal of pro-Kurdish mayors. On the 15th February, the Turkish Interior Ministry replaced Abdullah Zeydan, the co-mayor of Van Metropolitan Municipality. This mayoral removal is the ninth removal of a pro-Kurdish mayor from either the People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) or HDP party since the 2024 local elections. This is being done by people who are often allies of Erdoğan. They are removing Kurdish control from these areas and not allowing the opposition to rule in the areas in which they are duly elected.
This again raises serious concerns for democracy and will have consequences for any peace process that involves democratisation, this already being seen through increased political violence after the latest mayoral removal, which resulted in the police detaining 127 people. If this type of government overreach is to continue, it could severely dent any long term peace.
If this is to be a true turning point for Kurdish-Turkish relations, the Turkish government will have to offer a true move to democratisation and start building a positive relationship with its Kurdish minority. This turning point will involve increased democratisation and normalisation of relations between Ankara and the Kurdish majority areas. Particularly, most importantly the Turkish government need to understand that just calling for peace is not enough; consistently undermining the rights and freedoms of the Kurdish peoples will only force them back to extremism as it did in 2013.
If the Turkish government does move towards a positive peace settlement with the Kurdish minority, it will help with the Turkish ambition of joining the European Union by moving into compliance with the Copenhagen Criteria regarding minority rights. However, much change in the political representation of the Kurdish and other ethnic minorities in Turkey has to happen to further this goal. The government will have to change course when it comes to the wider areas that affect this issue and acknowledge that their policy toward the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds and the consistent democratic violations of pro-Kurdish parties will be detrimental for any peace process. It remains to be seen if the Turkish government is willing to let these long term changes for peace truly take hold.
