Imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founder and leader Abdullah Ocalan is set to make a ‘historic call’ in the near future, following months of renewed negotiations to bring 40 years of Turkish-Kurdish conflict to an end.

Kurds in Turkey have been subjected to violence, persecution, and assimilation since the founding of the modern Turkish Republic. In 1978, Ocalan and his comrades founded the PKK in response. At the time, they demanded an independent Kurdish state; today, Ocalan and the PKK reject nation-states altogether and fight for local self-governance and Kurdish rights within existing borders.

The PKK carried out its first armed attacks on Turkish military targets in 1984. Since then, four decades of war have cost Turkey billions of dollars, destabilized its neighbors and its relationships with its allies, and resulted in the loss of over 40,000 lives. The underlying drivers of violence remain largely unaddressed.

That may be about to change. As the next move in ongoing peace talks, Ocalan is expected to make a statement that will help bring the war and its root causes to a permanent end.

This statement could be a major step towards peace, stability and prosperity in Turkey. It may have equal weight in Syria, where Turkey’s pursuit of a military solution to its Kurdish question has impacted the global fight against ISIS and now threatens efforts to integrate Syrian Kurds into the new government after the fall of the Assad regime.

When will the message be shared?

Initially, rumors spread that Ocalan would speak on February 15th, the 26th anniversary of his capture and imprisonment. This did not happen. On the weekend of the 15th, the DEM Party was engaged in meetings related to the peace talks, visiting Iraqi Kurdish leaders in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah to share Ocalan’s views. When those meetings concluded, DEM leaders said that they would apply to meet with Ocalan for a third time.

On February 24th, DEM Party MP Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit announced the order of events that would precede Ocalan’s statement.

“Our delegation will go to Imrali [the maximum-security island prison where Ocalan is held] in a few days. We expect them to make the necessary applications in this regard within a few days. Preparations for the application are being completed. During this visit, information about the visits made in Southern Kurdistan and the discussions held will be conveyed to Mr. Ocalan. After this meeting, the schedule for the historic call to be made by Mr. Ocalan will also be clarified,” she said.

As of February 25th, it is not clear when this visit will take place. The DEM Party has not yet said that its delegation has applied or received permission for a meeting. Ocalan’s message is unlikely to arrive any later than Newroz, the Kurdish New Year that falls on March 21st.

How will the message be presented?

Many sources have alleged that Ocalan’s message will take the form of a video.

On February 20th, Turkish Minister of Justice Yilmaz Tunc said that Turkish law does not allow any prisoner to address the public in this manner.

The DEM Party disagrees. DEM leaders have criticized Tunc’s approach, pointing out that the letter of the law has not stopped the government from barring Ocalan from meeting with his relatives and lawyers for years at a time. They argue that the legal basis for a video message does exist.

The PKK, for its part, has left no ambiguity on the kind of statement it expects.

“It must be a video message. We, the cadres, militants, fighters of this movement, our people, our friends, all democratic segments, all society, peoples, should be able to hear and listen to the call and statement from the mouth of Leader Apo [Abdullah Ocalan]. They should be able to see Leader Apo. Only this will convince us, the fighters, our people, the forces of democracy, the entire public opinion,” said KCK Co-Chair Bese Hozat.

What will Ocalan say?

While Turkish leaders have bluntly called on Ocalan to ‘declare an end to terrorism,’ no armed conflict can be ended in a single message from a single political leader. This statement, taken alone, is not likely to be the end of anything. Rather, Kurdish officials frame the call as a set of action items that will create conditions under which armed struggle and an armed movement are no longer relevant.

“We believe that a roadmap will emerge wherein all people living in this country will be able to live equally, eliminating terror, violence and the perception of security threats. Weapons are a very small part of this, a result…[Ocalan] will announce a roadmap aimed at moving the resolution of the Kurdish issue from a violent base to a political, legal and democratic base,” said DEM Party Co-Chair Tuncer Bakirhan in a representative example of this perspective.

Positions taken by Ocalan during previous rounds of dialogue, as well as comments on the ongoing negotiations made by Kurdish officials in recent weeks, provide a rough outline of some topics that Ocalan’s message could include: a ceasefire, a legal framework for negotiations in Turkey,  the restructuring of the PKK, and the status of Northeast Syria.

Ceasefire

The most concrete action item likely to be included in the message is a ceasefire. Ocalan indicated a “permanent no-action period” as the first step to peace in his 2009 Road Map, the document that formed the basis of earlier negotiations known as the ‘Oslo Process.’ A ceasefire call formed the crux of his 2013 Newroz message, where he said “the period of armed struggle is ending, and the door is opening to democratic politics…We have reached the point where weapons should go silent and ideas and politics should speak.”

The PKK demands that the ceasefire be bilateral, like the 2013-2015 ceasefire was.

“How can we put disarmament on our agenda here as long as there is no ceasefire! Weapons are used every day, and we protect ourselves with weapons. Therefore, the ground needs to be created first. How can the ground be created? First, there can be a bilateral ceasefire,” HPG Commander Murat Karayilan said in a February 6th interview with Sterk TV.

Turkey has rarely responded to the PKK’s unilateral ceasefires. Given the duration of today’s negotiations and the intensity of discussions over the content of the call, it is likely that, if a ceasefire is announced, both parties will have mutually planned to observe it. Ceasefire conditions will make further steps more politically tenable for all sides.

Legal Framework

One major criticism of the last peace process was the failure to engage the Turkish Parliament and otherwise create formal legal grounds upon which negotiations could take place. This time, all parties appear to believe a different approach is necessary.

For Ocalan, parliamentary participation was a central component of the 2009 Road Map. In that document, he wrote that “the work of the government and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey will be pivotal” in achieving a solution. As for specific steps, he called on the parliament to approve the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would “prepare proposals that could remove legal obstacles,” including by developing an amnesty law to facilitate the PKK’s disarmament and reintegration.

DEM Party sources have suggested that Ocalan maintains a belief in the importance of legal and parliamentary action today. The meetings with political parties following the Imrali Delegation’s December 28th visit reportedly took place at his request.

“Ocalan sees it as very important for this issue to be on the floor of the Parliament. He sees it as a democratic legal process for a democratic Turkey,” a DEM Party official told Mezopotamya Agency following the DEM Imrali Delegation’s January 22nd meeting.

On February 23rd, DEM Party Co-Chair Tulay Hatimogullari said Ocalan’s recommendations included “creating a commission that includes primarily political parties represented in parliament, building its infrastructure, and working on solution-oriented work.”

Based on this, Ocalan’s call may include both proposals for a parliamentary framework in which the process can be advanced and proposals for more immediate, specific legal reforms.

Immediate legal actions proposed in the call could include the passage of a law to decriminalize participation in negotiations and otherwise remove barriers to engagement. A demand for a change in Ocalan’s own conditions, intended to facilitate his participation in the process, is also likely.

The proposed parliamentary framework may be a commission similar to the one described by Hatimogullari. Such a commission could be given a mandate to work on legal issues central to a political settlement: amnesty laws, guarantees for Kurdish rights and identity, and reforms to laws used to criminalize Kurdish political participation. It could also be part of the possible drafting of a new constitution.

Restructuring the PKK

Like the Turkish government, the PKK will have to make institutional changes to facilitate peace talks. Kurdish leaders have hinted that they, too, may be preparing for reforms that could pave the way for a political settlement.

On February 22nd, KONGRA-GEL Co-Chair Remzi Kartal alluded to the PKK’s history of restructuring when discussing a letter from Ocalan that KNK and KCDK-E leaders in Europe had received.

“For a long time, the resistance movement, that is, the PKK, has always wanted to change and develop its means of struggle. From this perspective, there have been many attempts to realize strategic changes and basic organizational changes. Our organization, our movement, has taken a position on this. From the beginning, we have given all of our support to the process that Leader Apo is developing and, as a movement and organization, are committed to carrying our work in all areas,” Kartal said.

In the February 6th interview, while explaining why the PKK demands Ocalan’s release from prison, Murat Karayilan suggested that the decision to disarm would require a PKK congress. “Apart from Leader Apo, no one from us can do this, namely, convene the congress to lay down arms, convince all friends and get their consent,” said Karayilan.

In the message, Ocalan may ask the PKK to hold a congress and share his views on what decisions that congress should make. These could include decisions related to the use of armed force and the movement’s potential post-war political structure.

Northeast Syria

Ten years ago, Syrian Kurdish successes in the war against ISIS complicated Turkey-PKK peace talks. This time, the outcome of negotiations in Turkey will have serious repercussions for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as they seek a reintegration deal with the Syrian transitional government.

In 2014, Ocalan is said to have told Turkish authorities that “Rojava is a red line.” In May 2019, in the context of negotiations between the U.S., Turkey, and the SDF, he said that “within the scope of the SDF, problems in Syria should be aimed to be solved by staying away from a culture of conflict, with constitutional assurances given within the framework of Syria’s territorial integrity.” He also urged the SDF to respect Turkey’s security concerns.

This time, according to an unnamed DEM Party official quoted by JINNEWS in January, “Mr. Abdullah Öcalan is of the opinion that since the general authority and status of Syria are not yet clear, Rojava, especially the Kurds and other peoples, should not be put into situations where they will face threats. He emphasizes the formation of a decentralized solution.”

Ocalan may reiterate these sentiments in his message. In particular, he may emphasize the importance of addressing Syrian Kurdish grievances within Syria’s borders, institutions, and political context. He is likely also to reassert the importance of de-escalation with Turkey.

He is not likely to give more specific directives to Syrian Kurds in this format. According to the DEM Party, the SDF’s leadership received a letter from Ocalan on or before February 17th.That same day, the SDF, SDC and DAANES held a meeting in which they reiterated their intention to integrate into Syria’s future government and security forces and resolve outstanding issues with the transitional government through dialogue.

(Photo taken by author, June 8th, 2024)