Emergent Conversation 24

This essay is part of the series Kurdistan(s): Repression, Resistance, and the Fight for Survival,
PoLAR Online Emergent Conversation 24

By Adnan Çelik

The historic call by Abdullah Öcalan—the founding leader of the Kurdish liberation movement—for the disarmament and dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK), the organization he co-founded in 1978, culminated in the PKK’s official announcement of its self-dissolution, made public on May 12, 2025.  This call seems to mark the end of an anti-colonial guerrilla war against the Turkish state and army that has lasted over forty years.

Öcalan, while free, spoke in a video filmed during a PKK guerrilla training session in a military camp in the Bekaa Valley (Lebanon) in the 1990s: “We are living in days when history is being written. [In times like these], we must rise up with all our talents. The settlement of centuries is being played out in a matter of weeks, in a matter of  …” A few decades later, this moment may have arrived for the Kurdish struggle, which is about to turn a page in their history and open a new one where, as history is being written in the conflagration of the Middle East, everything remains to be invented. By taking on this “historic responsibility,” it is not impossible that Öcalan is now in the process of finally paving the way for a settlement that has been awaited for several decades—and potentially within just a few months.

To understand this call and grasp the consequences, a number of fundamental facts need to be considered. Some of these relate to current developments in the Middle East, while others are rooted in the recent history of Turkish state policies in Northern Kurdistan, as well as in the Kurdish movement’s resilience in renewing itself and surviving.

Repeated Failures to Find a Political Solution to the “Kurdish Question”

Öcalan’s most recent call for the dissolution of his party in February 2025, is not the first of its kind. Throughout the conflict between the PKK guerrillas and the Turkish state, the use of arms has coexisted—almost from the very beginning—with efforts toward dialogue, talks, and negotiations. Since his arrest in 1999, this is the fourth time that Öcalan has played a central role in a dialogue or negotiation initiative with the Turkish state to end the armed conflict.

At the height of the “years of fire” in the 1990s, when the intelligence operatives, security forces, and the Turkish army were implementing a scorched-earth policy and massive paramilitarization of the Kurdish regions under a state of emergency rule, a negotiation process between the PKK and the then President of Turkey Turgut Özal was interrupted by Özal’s suspicious death.

Freshly incarcerated between 1999 and 2002, Öcalan launched the first steps toward the disarmament and dissolution of the PKK. He ordered the withdrawal of guerrilla forces across the border in 1999—a unilateral and highly symbolic gesture aimed at creating conditions for a political resolution of the conflict.  The Turkish army ambushed the guerrillas during the retreat in the same year, killing or imprisoning around a thousand of them – an event that left a lasting mark on the memory of the Kurdish liberation movement, and fueled a deep-seated mistrust of the Turkish state’s willingness to accept a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.

Reorganized around the new paradigm proposed by Öcalan under the name of democratic confederalism (Öcalan 2011), in favor of an egalitarian cohabitation of Turks, Kurds and other minorities in Turkey, the PKK took back its name and announced the resumption of armed struggle in 2004.  In the following years, the PKK grew rapidly, strengthening its military capacity and influence on the ground. It established itself as a major player and reference for the Kurdish movement in Turkey, developing its legal branch and winning numerous electoral victories at local municipal elections.  Against this backdrop of growing military, legal and political power, the next two peace processes took place respectively from 2008-2011 and 2013-2015. This time, they were truly bilateral talks and dialogues. Representatives of the Turkish state and the guerrillas met and seriously considered measures and steps that could lead to the laying down of arms and an end to the conflict.

The 2008 and 2011 peace efforts, known as the “Oslo” process, were conducted under the seal of the strictest possible confidentiality. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then Prime Minister, had announced an “imminent resolution of the Kurdish question” to strengthen his electoral base and secure the support of part of the Kurdish electorate, at the risk of alienating certain intransigent Kemalist sectors and the far right. The “Oslo process” also represented an opportunity for the government to relaunch relations with the European Union and revitalize accession negotiations. However, the public was not informed about the content or progress of the talks. The process ultimately failed, in part due to leaks that publicly exposed the talks and provoked outrage among segments of the Turkish public and political parties which adopted a hardline, uncompromisingly militaristic stance toward the “terrorist organization” (Çiçek 2018).

The second bilateral peace process took place from 2013-2015. Of all the attempts at resolution, this engagement raised the greatest hopes and went the farthest, despite a particularly stormy and difficult internal and external context. Known as the “İmralı Process,” after the island where Öcalan is imprisoned under a special detention regime, it began in 2013, at a time when the Kurdish movement, particularly its legal and parliamentary wing, had succeeded in forming a broad emancipatory coalition with other left-wing and democratic forces in Turkey. For the first time in Turkey’s history, the existence of negotiations was not kept secret but, on the contrary, were being publicized. However, although it was known that negotiations were underway, the specific commitments made by the various parties—and what they received in return—remain unclear.

A historic “farewell to arms” speech, written by Abdullah Öcalan, was read during the Newroz celebration on March 21, 2013. A follow-up letter in 2015 reiterated this call, urging that arms be silenced so that politics could finally speak. It announced the gradual withdrawal of fighters from Turkey and the imminent prospect of constitutional recognition for the Kurds. The 2013 call for a ceasefire was the most effective to date, leading to the withdrawal of thousands of fighters, which proceeded without skirmishes from spring to autumn. For its part, the government had announced a set of long-awaited reforms, which were expected to pave the way for a new constitution. However, the disappointment caused by the reforms’ content was disproportionate to the expectations they had raised.

Despite the fragility of the process—strained by internal events such as the 2013 Gezi uprising and external developments like the Syrian civil war, peace and the prospect of a political solution had never seemed so close. In particular, they had materialized with the publication of the “Dolmabahçe Memorandum” on February 28, 2015. This document officially bound the two parties—the Turkish state and the PKK—and announced a ten-point roadmap with concrete measures to resolve the conflict and put an end to the armed struggle, through voluntary disarmament. The terms of the text remained evasive, but the very fact that government officials officially recognized the guerrilla movement’s historic spokesman as the central figure in a genuine negotiation process, and solemnly announced the imminent conclusion of peace, made it possible to imagine unprecedented advances: constitutional recognition of the Kurds, the right to mother-tongue education, the release of thousands of political prisoners, a rehabilitation program for demobilized guerrillas, and etc.

However, the rapid transformation of the regional and international context played a key role in the collapse of the negotiations. These developments included the growing prominence and battlefield victories of the Syrian Kurdish forces, namely the People’s Defense Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, YPJ), in the fight against ISIS; increased international coalition support for these groups; the battle of Kobane; and the Turkish government’s alleged compromises with ISIS to counter the rise of the Syrian Kurds’ autonomous administration. Domestically, the primary catalyst for this political U-turn was the remarkable success of the Kurdish political party in the June 2015 general elections. The People’s Democratic Party (HDP) secured 13.12 percent of the national vote and 80 parliamentary seats, becoming the third-largest party in the Grand National Assembly and effectively stripping the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of its absolute majority. However, this electoral breakthrough also positioned the HDP as a significant political obstacle, making it a prime target for the ruling establishment (Yonucu 2017; Çelik 2023). Following the elections, the Turkish military launched operations in Kurdish towns, imposed curfews, caused mass displacements, and was granted immunity for its actions.

The ensuing spiral of violence in Northern Kurdistan reached such intensity that it reminded many observers of the “years of fire” of the 1990s—the peak of militaristic escalation and scorched-earth policies carried out by the Turkish army, security forces, and intelligence operations. In August 2016, amid in a profoundly disrupted national context, President Erdoğan denied ever having initiated a negotiation process between 2013 and 2015.

On the one hand, these precedents highlight the decisive influences of intersecting national, regional, and international dynamics on both the emergence and collapse of negotiations aimed at achieving peaceful coexistence between the Turkish state and the Kurdish population: the persistent lack of transparency, reliable information, and public involvement. The government’s ambiguities and abrupt policy shifts must be understood within the broader context of a longstanding domestic political tradition—characterized by deeply ingrained anti-Kurdish racism and the dominance of a colonial, authoritarian mindset shared by most Turkish political parties and, by extension, much of the electorate. A significant portion of the political establishment simply cannot conceive of—or accept—any outcome that might resemble a victory for the Kurdish movement, which has long been treated as public enemy number one through state-driven propaganda and historical distortion since the early years of the Republic.

The Bloody Legacy of the Last Decade: Öcalan’s Call in Context

Understanding Öcalan’s 2025 letter that calls for the dissolution of the PKK requires situating it within the broader context of disillusionment and the declining strength of the Kurdish movement over the past decade. Its tone reflects not only the successive failures of the peace processes, but also the devastating impact of state repression and colonialism, which have profoundly affected political dynamics in Turkey, while altering regional relations.

Since the collapse of the peace process in 2015, the government has orchestrated a broad campaign of politicide (see also Bayır 2014) aimed at destroying the very conditions that enabled the legal Kurdish movement to engage in politics. This broad campaign of criminalization and demonization—reviving endless anti-terror rhetoric and labeling all components of the Kurdish social movement as “extensions of the PKK”—was launched by the ruling AKP-MHP alliance and backed by most opposition parties (Çelik, 2023). Numerous civil society organizations linked to the Kurdish movement or active in areas such as ecology, social solidarity, and culture were shut down. Thousands of teachers, civil servants, and trade unionists were dismissed or reassigned, destabilizing the networks that supported pro-Kurdish electoral efforts. Following the 2015 elections, over 6,000 officials from pro-Kurdish parties—including co-presidents, MPs, and co-mayors—were imprisoned in a sweeping crackdown on anyone affiliated with these parties. Those MPs who avoided detention often face legal restrictions, including travel bans, disqualification from political activity, and expulsion from parliament—violating the principle of parliamentary immunity. More than 6 million voters have effectively been disenfranchised by presidential decree: in nearly two-thirds of municipalities and district councils governed by pro-Kurdish parties, elected mayors and officials accused of PKK links have been removed and replaced by state-appointed trustees, without new elections.

The military weakening of the PKK has been compounded by this political purge in the legal and civil spheres over the past decade, notably through the Turkish state’s deep military deployment on Kurdish soil and beyond its borders in Syria and Iraq. The increased use of drones by the Turkish army has considerably reduced the mobility of the guerrillas, worsening their situation wherever they are. The recruitment rate within the PKK has also fallen dramatically over the past ten years.

Militarily weakened and virtually absent from Turkish territory, the PKK faces major, even insurmountable constraints: the forced withdrawal of its cadres and fighters from Rojava, imposed by Turkey, the new Syrian regime, and the US; relentless military operations targeting its positions in Iraqi Kurdistan, carried out with the active support of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG); and ambivalent relations with the Iranian authorities, oscillating between a tacit alliance and the threat of direct confrontation with the Islamic Republic regime through the PJAK (the Free Life Party of Kurdistan). Trapped in the mountainous triangle formed by Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, the PKK is seeing its room for maneuver shrink considerably. Öcalan is aware of this strategic reality and, more broadly, of the increasingly untenable situation of non-state armed movements in the Middle East.

Indeed, a new strategic reconfiguration on an international scale, similar in its effects to the consequences of September 11, 2001, is taking shape in the wake of the events of October 7, 2023. The new wave of anti-terrorism policies led by Israel with the support of the United States and its Western allies has rapidly dismantled the networks of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as other groups close to or allied with them, by targeting their leaders and cadres with the deployment of high-tech military means of unparalleled effectiveness, while the civilian populations considered to be their social bases have suffered incalculable “collateral damage.” These developments have, in my view, had a significant influence on Öcalan’s decision. By calling on the PKK to voluntarily disband, he seems to want to anticipate the inevitable and, by this gesture, create favorable conditions for the movement’s restructuring on a more viable basis.

Öcalan seems to have come to terms with the fact that the armed struggle in Turkey, initially a means of overturning the colonial situation in Kurdistan, was not only incapable, in the current circumstances, of achieving any victory or gain, but had become a major obstacle to the progress of the Kurdish movement and the safety of Kurds as a whole.

Instead of Conclusion

Whatever path led to it, the content and tone of Öcalan’s call and the PKK’s decision reveal, if we examine them in the light of a broader context, a form of confidence: confidence in the ability of the Kurdish movement and people to survive, live and renew themselves without resorting to force and arms; confidence in the civil Kurdish political movement, which has become its backbone in the legal sphere and continues to survive despite adversity of rare brutality. He further noted in the perspective document he sent to the PKK that the new Kurdish political subjectivity, shaped by forty years of PKK struggle, is now firmly anchored in Turkey’s political landscape.

It would be premature to say that the end of the armed struggle will bring about a reversal of prospects. However, in the absence of a radical and profound change in the violent and authoritarian political habits of the Turkish regime, at least in the short term, we can hope for a lull that will allow for the gradual reconquest and reconstruction of the spaces and networks destroyed or lost in the social, ideological, and solidarity spheres.

In any case, the end of the armed struggle waged by the PKK for nearly half a century, leads us to speculate on the prospects this opens up for the moral economy of the Kurdish movement, the Turkish state, and Turkish society. Among the questions that are now open and will deserve the attention of observers and researchers in the years to come is what transformative effects this will have on the political subjectivity of the Kurds, whose identity and emotionality have been built around the guerrilla struggle for several generations? But also, and perhaps even more so, how will this shift affect the Turkish regime and society, which have historically found unity in the exclusionary spearhead of existential struggle against an “internal enemy.”

Adnan Çelik, anthropologist and historian, is an Associate Professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, EHESS) in Paris. He is the author of Dans l’ombre de l’État : Kurdes contre Kurdes (Brepols, 2021), and co-author of Laboratories of Learning: Social Movements, Education and Knowledge-Making in the Global South (Pluto, 2024) with M. Novelli, B. Kutan, P. Kane, T. Pherali, and S. Benjamin. He also co-authored La Malédiction: Le génocide des Arméniens dans la mémoire des Kurdes de Diyarbekir (L’Harmattan, 2021) with Namık Kemal Dinç, and co-edited Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Experiences (Lexington Books, 2019) with Lucie Drechselová. His research focuses on political violence, memorial regimes, and transnational activism.

Works Cited

Bayır, Derya. 2013. “The Role of the Judicial System in the Politicide of the Kurdish Opposition.” In The Kurdish Question in Turkey: New Perspectives on Violence, Representation and Reconciliation, edited by Cengiz Gunes and Welat Zeydanlıoğlu, pp. 21–46. London: Routledge.

Çelik, Adnan. 2023. “Le mouvement kurde toujours debout malgré le ‘politicide’ orchestré par Erdoğan.” Dossier spécial sur les élections en Turquie. Sciences Po CERI (Paris Institute of Political Studies, Center for International Studies). April 2023. Accessed September 25, 2025: https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/fr/content/dossiersduceri/le-mouvement-kurde-toujours-debout-malgre-le-politicide-orchestre-par-erdoganffa3.html?d20.

Çiçek, Cuma. 2018. “Süreç”: Kürt Çatışması ve Çözüm Arayışları. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.

Öcalan, Abdullah. 2011. Democratic Confederalism. London and Cologne: Transmedia Publishing,.

Yonucu, Deniz.2017.  “Colonial Envy and the Success of the Kurdish Political Struggle.” In Emergency for Turkish Democracy, APLA / PoLAR Respond to the Constitutional Referendum, edited by Heath Cabot and Jennifer Curtis. May 11, 2017. Accessed September 25, 2025:  https://politicalandlegalanthro.org/2017/05/11/colonial-envy-and-the-unbearable-success-of-the-kurdish-political-struggle/.