Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned chief of the outlawed Kurdistan Employees’ birthday party (PKK), has referred to as at the staff to disarm and dissolve itself. In a letter learn out by means of his political allies in Istanbul, Turkey, on February 27, he wrote: “I take on the historical responsibility for this call … All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
Two days later, the PKK’s government committee declared a ceasefire to its armed fight in opposition to the Turkish state. The war, which started in 1984 with the purpose of setting up an unbiased Kurdish state in keeping with state oppression, has claimed the lives of greater than 40,000 folks and displaced masses of 1000’s extra.
Öcalan has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999, when he used to be captured by means of Turkish safety forces in Kenya. However he has remained the chief of the PKK during and has saved his sturdy persona cult a number of the Kurdish freedom motion.
He used to be the power at the back of the PKK’s shift clear of its separatist objectives within the 2000s. He argued that the method to the Kurdish query within the Heart East used to be for higher autonomy and Kurdish rights throughout the thought of “democratic confederalism”, constructed at the pillars of direct democracy relatively than a geographical region style.
In his letter, Öcalan repeated this argument. He blamed the previous 200 years of capitalist modernity for the get a divorce of the alliance between the Kurds and the Turks. And he highlighted the significance of a actually democratic society and political area for an enduring method to the Kurdish fight.
Öcalan’s letter basically addressed the Turkish public and world neighborhood, and is more likely to had been “approved” by means of the Turkish state. As such, it used to be relatively quick, now and then obscure, and didn’t suggest an in depth framework concerning the peace procedure between Turkey and the PKK.
However after Öcalan’s letter used to be learn out, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy birthday party (DEM), shared with newshounds an extra commentary Öcalan had made.
Öcalan had it appears stated: “Undoubtedly, in practice, the laying down of arms and the dissolution of the PKK require the recognition of democratic politics and a legal framework”. This level means that Öcalan’s name to disarm is simply the start of an extended procedure to convey the war to an in depth.
The PKK has introduced that, to ensure that disarmament and dissolution to be put into follow, Öcalan wishes to guide this congress in my view. This means an expectation for Öcalan to achieve some kind of freedom to keep up a correspondence and direct the method.
Delegation contributors of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy birthday party at a press convention the place a letter from Öcalan used to be learn, through which he referred to as at the staff to put down their hands and dissolve.
Erdem Sahin / EPA
Make stronger for dissolution
Main figures from a number of pro-Kurdish teams have welcomed the order for the PKK to disarm. This has incorporated Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and Salih Muslim, the previous co-chairperson of the Democratic Union birthday party (PYD) in Syria.
Öcalan’s name has additionally won fortify from the world neighborhood. This comprises america and UK, which along many different international locations, recognise the PKK as a terrorist organisation. On February 27, US Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson Brian Hughes instructed CNN that the announcement used to be “a significant development” that “we believe will help bring peace to this troubled region”.
Possibly most significantly, Öcalan’s announcement has been welcomed nearly unanimously by means of political events in Turkey. Best the ultra-nationalist Just right and Victory events oppose the decision to dissolve the PKK, seeing any negotiations with the gang as compromising nationwide integrity.
However, in spite of this essential step against peace, it stays tough to look an forthcoming finish to the Kurdish fight in Turkey. The Justice and Building birthday party (AKP) and the Nationalist Motion birthday party, that have dominated Turkey in combination since 2023, had been proceeding their oppression of the democratic sphere.
They have got changed elected Kurdish mayors with govt officers, whilst additionally imprisoning democratically elected Kurdish politicians. And folks within the media, civil society and different democratic actions, such because the Other folks’s Democratic Congress, had been criminalised and detained.
On the similar time, Turkey considers the SDF and different Kurdish organisations just like the Other folks’s Coverage Gadgets (YPG) and the PYD as offshoots of the PKK. It has supported its armed forces power in Syria, the Syrian Nationwide Military, to prevent the Kurdish independent area on its border from reaching political standing, seeing it as a right away risk to nationwide safety.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has warned the PKK of additional motion if the method of disarmament is stalled. In a publish on X on March 1, Erdoğan wrote: “If the promises are not kept … such as delaying, deceiving, changing names … we will continue our operations, if necessary, until we eliminate the last terrorist”.
This alerts an expectation from the Turkish state that they would like all the teams they go together with the PKK, armed and non-armed, to additionally disband. Alternatively, Abdi has asserted that Öcalan’s name for the PKK to dissolve does no longer observe to the gang he leads. “If there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria”, Abdi stated.
The Syrian Nationwide Military has been launching assaults in northern Syria to seize territory from the SDF, with combating specifically intense across the Tishreen Dam.
The Turkey-backed SNA has been attacking SDF positions in northern Syria.
Institute for the Learn about of Warfare
Thus far, the one certain manner from the Turkish govt has been signalling a conceivable exchange within the constitutional definition of citizenship to move past ethnic standards. This could be a primary step against a extra pluralist and inclusive description of citizenship in Turkey, the place folks from a number of ethnic teams have lived for hundreds of years.
There are more than a few issues over the techniques through which the dissolution procedure can be performed. However the opportunity of peace is efficacious because it opens up democratic avenues for fight. Resolving the Kurdish query, certainly one of Turkey’s maximum urgent unresolved problems, will pave the best way for development in different spaces equivalent to democratisation and freedom of expression.
