Analysis
PKK disarmament: A new peace effort or history repeating?
This appeal is not the first of its kind. Back in 2013, a similar text from Ocalan, read during the celebrations for Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, led to the withdrawal of the PKK guerrilla forces from Turkey.
“The recent call by Mr. Devlet Bahçeli, the commitment demonstrated by the President [Erdogan], and the positive approaches of various political parties have contributed to the emergence of this new phase. In this context, I call for the disarmament of all armed groups and assume historical responsibility for this appeal.”
With these words, Abdullah Ocalan appealed to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to lay down its arms and, after a congress, declare the dissolution of the party.
This appeal is not the first of its kind. Back in 2013, a similar text from Ocalan, read during the celebrations for Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, led to the withdrawal of the PKK guerrilla forces from Turkey. In that case, the message was an outcome of the “Oslo talks” that began in 2007 and represented the first path that offered a real possibility of reaching a political solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey, ending the armed struggle that began in August 1984. Leading PKK figures such as Mustafa Karasu and Sozdar Avesta participated directly in the talks, face-to-face with senior officials from Turkey’s National Intelligence Service. Since 2010, the latter also included Hakan Fidan, the current Turkish Foreign Minister.
In his book 2005 - 2015 Türkiye - Pkk gorusmeleri (“The 2005 - 2015 Turkey-PKK Negotiations”), Kurdish journalist Amed Dicle boiled down the reasons that led to the collapse of the Oslo talks to three key issues: the Turkish state's insistence on unilateral disarmament, its refusal to end Ocalan's solitary confinement, and the absence of any legal or constitutional reform.
Some of these issues seem to be coming back in the current negotiations. The People's Defense Forces (HPG) linked to the PKK have already stated that it is impossible to achieve disarmament without a path that would start with a ceasefire, and Ocalan's release has been repeatedly mentioned as a precondition for the party to declare an end to the armed struggle. These positions seem to conflict with the attitude of the Turkish government. A case in point is the fact that a video message was expected from the imprisoned Kurdish leader, while his ultimately came in written form alone. According to the Turkish Justice Minister, a video message from prison would have violated Turkish regulations, a prohibition described as “unserious” by Besê Hozat, co-chair of the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK).
While the Oslo talks collapsed, they laid the groundwork for a second round of negotiations, which took place between 2013 and 2015. “We have sacrificed much of our lives for the Kurdish people, we paid a high price. None of these sacrifices, none of our struggles, were in vain. For as a consequence of them, the Kurdish people have attained once again their identity and their roots. We have now reached the point of ‘silencing the weapons and letting the ideas and politics speak’,” Ocalan said in his 2013 letter. “This is not an end, but a new beginning. This is not abandoning the struggle – we are starting a different struggle.”
At the time, the bilateral ceasefire had allowed the PKK to focus its military efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. In effect, the defeat of ISIS in Kobane and the rescue of the Yazidis trapped in Shengal in August 2014 were also made possible because of the ongoing negotiations. Likewise, a cessation of hostilities, even a temporary one, could strengthen the Northeast Syria Democratic Autonomous Administration (DAANES) in the ongoing negotiations to build the new Syria. Not surprisingly, the press conference was watched by thousands of people, not only on the big screens installed in Qamishlo and Kobane but, most importantly, by those manning the garrison defending the Tishreen Dam.
Turkey's real intentions are still unclear. In 2015, it was the success of Kurdish fighters in Syria, along with the electoral success of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), that led Erdogan to deny the existence of the 10-point agreement that had been signed just four months earlier by Ocalan himself.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/dal-naufragio-dei-colloqui-di-oslo-a-oggi-la-lunga-ricerca-della-pace-con-istanbul on 2025-02-28