Turkey’s historic bid to end the PKK insurgency hangs in the balance - opinion

On August 10, 2026, the Turkish parliament passed, by 467 votes in the 600-seat legislature, a law putting into effect what Ankara calls the “Terror-Free Turkey” process – a euphemism for the disbandment and disarmament of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

That unusual accord between long-time political opponents sealed a compromise that had been decades in the making: the dissolution of the PKK in exchange for unprecedented leniency for its former members.

The new law provides a mechanism for suspending certain prosecutions relating to PKK offences, and for deferring the execution of some prison sentences.

Most importantly, it establishes a framework intended to facilitate the reintegration of eligible former PKK members into civilian life. The Associated Press reported that the measure could potentially affect approximately 4,000 PKK members not directly involved in violent crimes.

The new law becomes operative only after Turkish security authorities have determined that the PKK and affiliated structures have indeed ended their armed existence and surrendered the weapons and ammunition under their control. This must then be confirmed by the National Security Council and published in the Official Gazette.

These requirements are not as oppressive as may first appear. The ground has been well prepared, and the PKK is ready and willing to comply.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of some 30-40 million people. They inhabit a contiguous mountainous area divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Most live in Turkey, where they constitute roughly one-fifth of the population.

For decades, Erdogan, together with many in the Turkish establishment, believed that granting their Kurdish citizens political autonomy could weaken the unity of the state.

Some feared it would be a first step toward an independent sovereign Kurdish state, particularly after the constitutional recognition of the autonomous Kurdistan administration in northern Iraq in 2005.

These fears were compounded during the Syrian civil war, starting in 2011. Kurdish forces established autonomous institutions in northern Syria, creating the possibility of a Kurdish-controlled zone along much of Turkey’s southern border. Links between the Kurdish forces in Syria and the PKK were perceived by Erdogan as a security threat.

He had already authorized military operations against PKK bases in northern Iraq. Turkish aircraft struck them in late 2007, and this was followed by a major ground offensive in February 2008. Subsequent PKK attacks on the Turkish military in 2011 led Erdogan to repeat air strikes against them, alongside intensified fighting in southeastern Turkey.

The current Terror-Free Turkey initiative is not the first time that Erdogan has attempted to hold out an olive branch to the PKK. In late 2012, when still prime minister, his government began a serious negotiation process with Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the PKK, imprisoned on Imrali island since 1999.

A historic moment came on February 28, 2015. At a joint press conference involving government representatives and leaders of the HDP (the Peoples’ Democratic Party), a message from Ocalan was read out calling on the PKK to take the “strategic and historical decision” to end the armed struggle.

It looked like a genuine call to transition from armed conflict to politics. Yet once again the ceasefire unraveled. During 2015, a series of incidents led Erdogan to resume airstrikes against PKK positions in northern Iraq.

The resulting fighting was extremely destructive. Almost 3,000 people were killed between July 2015 and July 2017. Overall, Reuters estimates that since 1984 the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, including combatants and civilians.

This second attempt at resolving the PKK issue is quite different, triggered by a quite unexpected event.

In October 2024, Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Erdogan’s principal parliamentary ally, unexpectedly suggested that Ocalan be brought from prison to address parliament and call upon the PKK to dissolve itself.

The initiative was all the more startling because Bahceli had historically taken one of the hardest nationalist positions against the Kurdish political movement. Erdogan described the development as a potentially “historic window of opportunity.”

A dramatic address by Ocalan to the Turkish parliament – akin, perhaps, to that by Anwar Sadat to Israel’s Knesset in 1977 – never took place. But there was a series of meetings between DEM politicians and Ocalan at Imrali prison, and in February 2025 Ocalan issued a crucial statement.

He called upon the PKK to abandon the armed struggle and lay down its arms, to dissolve itself and pursue the Kurdish question through democratic politics.

The important difference from 2015 is that the current process does not seek yet another ceasefire, but explicitly envisages the end of the PKK as an organization – an outcome announced in May 2025, when the PKK said its 12th Congress had decided to dissolve the organization and end its armed struggle.

In July 2025, Ocalan appeared in a rare video and said the armed struggle was over. He called for a transition toward democratic politics and asked the Turkish parliament to establish a mechanism to oversee disarmament and the broader peace process.

The result is Turkey’s August 2026 law – a legal mechanism for implementing the PKK’s decision to dissolve and disarm. But its principal provisions are conditional on verified PKK disarmament, and that step has not yet been taken. The process is at its most delicate point.

A terror-free Turkey is in the balance.