Turkey's Erdogan Offers the Kurds an Olive Branch Wrapped in a Threat - Turkey - Haaretz.com
Just over two months ago, on October 22, a political bombshell was thrown in Turkey. At a parliamentary meeting, the leader of the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, proposed allowing the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a lifetime prison sentence, to appear before Parliament and announced that "terrorism has been eradicated, and his organization will be dismantled."
This was a dramatic declaration, both in terms of content and timing, especially when spoken by Bahceli, who waves the flag of uncompromising struggle against the Kurdish organization and who had demanded the death penalty for Ocalan.
Bahceli, 76, a coalition partner of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had earlier stunned MPs by demonstrably crossing the aisle to shake the hands of MPs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM).
To grasp the scale of the gesture, an equivalent one would be National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir publicly hugging MK Ahmed Tibi or MK Ayman Odeh and proposing to release Marwan Barghouti if he would announce halting the armed struggle.
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But after a day it seemed that Bahceli's initiative would not last. The powerful bombing, attributed to the PKK, of the Ankara headquarters of Turkish Aerospace Industries, which designs and makes UAVs, killed five people and wounded twelve, jeopardizing the proposal.
A few days later, it turned out that it was in fact a well-planned move organized by Erdogan behind the scenes, and he had no intention of letting the terrorist attack stop him.
Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) display flags with a portrait of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, in Istanbul, Turkey, in March.Credit: Umit Bektas/Reuters
"We want to create a Turkey where terrorism does not exist," declared Erdogan, and then, for the first time since March 2020, he allowed Ocalan's family to visit him in the Imrali Prison near Istanbul, where he has been imprisoned since 1999.
That was just the prelude. Last Saturday and with the cabinet's approval, senior DEM representatives visited Ocalan and returned with a direct quote from him: "I have the capability and resolve to contribute positively to this new paradigm empowered by Mr. Bahceli and Mr. Erdogan... I am ready to take the positive step and make the call."
"Our efforts will advance the country to the level it deserves and will be a guideline for a democratic transformation. It is a time of peace, democracy and brotherhood for Turkey and the region."
The bloody struggle between the Kurds and the Turkish government, which began in 1984 and has killed more than 40,000 people, may now get another "opportunity" (Erdogan's word) to be resolved and may have a better chance this time.
Turkey began a reconciliation process with the PKK with secret talks in 2010, which were almost finalized when Erdogan submitted a bill entitled the "Law to End Terrorism and Social Integration," under which all ministries that are authorized to do so may hold talks with the PKK and its leader, Ocalan.
The law recognizes the PKK and turns it into a partner for reforms that Erdogan is seeking to implement in the government's relations with the Kurdish minority and the PKK.
It also includes a package of proposals for PKK members who lay down their arms, the pardoning of children and young men whom the PKK abducted to fill its ranks as combatants and a proposal for rehabilitation plans for junior PKK activists who "have no blood on their hands."
But the reconciliation efforts collapsed in 2015, and Turkey switched to a months-long, brutal and lethal offensive against Kurdish concentrations in Turkey and Iraq. Thousands were killed and large parts of Diyarbakir, considered the capital of the Kurdish region in Turkey, were destroyed.
The new reconciliation process is opening under different circumstances that might help it succeed. The rapid collapse of Assad's regime in Syria by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, led by Ahmed A-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad Al-Golani), and with Turkish assistance, which has turned Syria into a Turkish "protectorate," creates complex challenges for Turkey and Syria's leaders, which will require several strategic decisions to resolve.
A-Sharaa's ambition to create a united country under a representative government and a single national army, means reaching deals with all the militias, especially the Kurdish forces that control Syria's northeastern districts.
A defaced poster of Bashar Assad in Syria, in December.Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP
Declaratively, he has already gained the consent of the leader of the Kurdish forces, Mazloum Abdi, who announced in a series of interviews that his forces should be an integral part of the Syrian army and that he considers the three-million Kurdish minority in Syria as an integral part of the Syrian nation and state.
But Abdi has several conditions for the merger, starting with granting special status to the Kurdish districts and demanding political negotiations, which have not yet begun.
For its part, Turkey will have to give A-Sharaa a green light to include in the Syrian army people who it has defined as "terrorist organizations," against which it is fighting and threatening to conquer their districts east of the Euphrates after taking over most of the districts to the west of the river.
Abdi, a charismatic leader who has demonstrated impressive capabilities in the war against ISIS and has become a U.S. ally, is prepared to negotiate with Turkey on their future relations, but Turkey has an unequivocal condition – the Kurdish forces must "put down their arms or be buried with them," per Erdogan's crude threat.
But exercising that threat is liable to put A-Sharaa in a dangerous position, precisely when he is trying to weave a national consensus by turning the Kurds into an enemy. In the face of A-Sharaa's political constraints, Turkey may be satisfied with Abdi removing "external parties" from his ranks – i.e. PKK members who came from Iraq and Iran – transferring his arms to the new Syrian army, and making do with a political structure that will be a partner in the Syrian government.
Mazloum Abdi in an interview with Reuters, in Syria, in December.Credit: Orhan Qereman/Reuters
Abdi is therefore prepared for this, telling the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview that PKK forces will leave Syria when the military operations end.
Ostensibly, the Turkish-PKK reconciliation, which is conditional on Ocalan announcing the party's dissolution, may pave the way for Turkish acceptance of the integration of Syrian Kurdish forces into the Syrian army, ease tensions on both sides of the border and even ease the threat of a Turkish invasion.
But this optimistic vision first has to cross a minefield. Because even if Ocalan agrees to announce the dissolution of the PKK or at least its disarming, there is no assurance that its members will obey him and lay down their arms.
Moreover, beyond ending the armed struggle, the Kurds, both in Turkey and Syria, have claims regarding their status in both countries for a share of budgets and participation in government.
Furthermore, although the Syrian Kurds can send the PKK members away, they are demanding in exchange that the Turkish forces withdraw from the towns and villages they captured and let the Kurdish residents who fled or were expelled from them to return home.
Long and exhausting negotiations are therefore expected, but the question is how the Kurds will behave if it becomes clear to them that the reconciliation will be unilateral and that the Syrian and Turkish governments have no intention of meeting their demands.
After all, the PKK experienced a similar process, which collapsed, and the Syrian Kurds cannot trust that Turkey will withdraw its forces, that A-Sharaa will be able to persuade them or that President-elect Donald Trump, a friend of Erdogan, will force Ankara's hand.
Ahmed A-Sharaa in Damascus, Syria, on Monday.Credit: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
But in the face of all these obstacles, Erdogan has a practical reason to advance reconciliation with the PKK and the Kurdish minority in his country, and that may decide the fate of the reconciliation. His term as president ends in three years, and the constitution forbids him from running again. The 70-year-old Erdogan has already announced that he intends to run again "if the nation wants."
But to exercise "the will of the people," he must amend the constitution, a process that requires a three-fifths majority of the 600 MPs to pass the amendment by a referendum (or two-thirds to pass it without one).
Erdogan's coalition currently only has 321 seats, and he will need the support of 39 opposition MPs. But they are mostly DEM members, whom Erdogan hopes to recruit through his reconciliation initiation.
Ostensibly, three years is a long time during which a lot can happen, but Erdogan, who suffered a blow in previous elections, has no intention of letting the time pass without intervening, and in his opinion, no time is too early to begin planning the constitutional amendment.
Erdogan will have been in power for 25 years in 2028 and if he is reelected, he will rule for presumably 30 uninterrupted years. If reconciliation with the Kurds is required to fulfill this ambition, the "price" is worthwhile for him.