Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan contends that Damascus’s success in disbanding Kurdish-led forces has provided momentum for his peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. However, jailed opposition figure Ekrem İmamoğlu this week decried Erdoğan’s effort as anti-democratic and a mere power play. An article in the new issue of Middle East Policy provides compelling evidence for İmamoğlu’s claims and indicates that Ankara’s attempt to end the 40-year violent struggle is likely to fail.
The Winter 2025–26 Middle East Policy features more analyses of Turkish politics, including the roiling Israel-Turkey conflict in Syria, and Ankara’s crackdown on the domestic opposition. Also covered are Washington’s new model for rebuilding failed states (open access); US-Saudi relations in light of China’s increasing influence; the Israeli peace movement; the symbols of Palestinian nationalism (open access); and many other issues of vital interest. Still available are our special issues, The Israel-Iran War and The October 7 Emergencies. If you find this newsletter useful, please forward to others you believe will benefit, and please follow us on the social media platforms X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
In his analysis of Erdoğan’s proposal to disarm and disband the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Michael M. Gunter acknowledges the enthusiasm from both sides. In early 2025, four months after a surprise announcement that incarcerated PKK leader Abduallah Ocalan could be paroled in return for his group’s laying down its weapons and renouncing separatism, the Kurdish group declared that “the organization’s long struggle had ‘brought the Kurdish issue to the point of resolution through democratic politics, thus completing its historical mission.’” Erdoğan quickly responded with a hopeful assertion that “the 47-year-old scourge of terrorism has, God willing, entered the process of coming to an end.”
Despite the optimism, Gunter shows that Ocalan and the PKK seek much more expansive political, social, and cultural rights than Erdoğan could conceive of offering, much less implementing. The evidence suggests that both sides are therefore pursuing short-term political aims. In addition, the author compares the current episode to previous bids for peace, none of which succeeded. The most realistic outcome, Gunter contends, would be a continued struggle but “with reduced violence and more political initiatives.”
In the summer of 2025, the PKK accused Erdoğan and his party of stalling and laid out why the two sides’ goals are incompatible. As Gunter puts it:
- The government incorrectly frames the issue as one of merely eliminating terrorism, not democratizing Turkey and granting Kurdish rights.
- The real motive of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is to use the prospect for peace as a ploy to win Kurdish support and defeat the main opposition Republican People’s Party in the next elections.
Indeed, the Turkish president cast the negotiations as a way to unite the state, though he neglected to include Kurdish political parties in his vision. And he emphasized the burden on the state of terrorism, avoiding public discussion of the constitutional changes sought by Kurds as a means to enshrine their rights. As one Kurdish member of parliament asserted, “‘One cannot speak of a genuine democratization process without first implementing the rulings of the’ European Court of Human Rights, which over the years has documented many instances of abuse and found the government liable for civilian deaths.”
Gunter supplements his close reading of the recent peace overtures with a historical analysis of the “legacy of failure” to resolve the half-century of conflict. Nods toward resolution in the early 1990s went nowhere. Later in the decade, when Ocalan was captured, the PKK leader ordered several of his associates to surrender as a gesture of goodwill. Despite their imprisonment, no progress was made.
Two major openings came between 2007 and 2015; Ocalan was even named to Time’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. But when Kurdish political parties made progress in Turkey’s electoral system, the state and the PKK renewed their violent conflict. Weighing this history, Gunter argues: “The earlier attempts at peace failed because, as we have seen with the current process, the two sides have starkly different perspectives.”
Still, one element today is clearly different: Ocalan’s hold over the PKK may be slipping. “A number of other leaders have emerged since his capture in 1999,” Gunter writes, “and it is not clear that Ocalan can succeed either in the quest for democratization or in the contest over the group’s leadership.” As a result, the Kurds may be more fragmented or less willing to compromise simply due to the leader’s wishes.
It is not clear whether this would make a deal more or less possible. The apparent collapse of Kurdish forces in Syria has given Erdoğan some momentum, and the Turkish leader hopes that this will break the historical cycle that Gunter believes will make this round of talks “likely to fail.”
Middle East Policy, Winter 2025
THE REGIONAL REORDERING
From Rebuilding to Restoring Political Order: A New Agenda for Failed Arab States
Guilain Denoeux | Robert Springborg—open access!
Saudi Arabia’s US-China Hedging Strategy and Its Regional Impact
Xiaoyu Wang | Salman K. Al-Dhafeeire | Degang Sun
Maritime Disruption in Yemen: The Making of a Hybrid Red Sea Order
Federico Donelli—open access!
The Struggle for Syria: Strategic Rivalry and the Risks of Escalation
Buğra Sari | Avnihan Kirişik
THE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINE
The Israeli Peace Movement in a Time of Crisis
Natalya Philippova—free to read!
The Role of Postage Stamps in Palestinian National Identity and History
Ido Zelkovitz | Yehiel Limor—open access!
TURKISH NATIONALISM AND DOMESTIC POLITICS
Why the New Turkey-PKK Peace Process Is Likely to Fail
Michael M. Gunter
Turkey’s March 19 Protests: An End to Competitive Authoritarianism?
Göktürk Tüysüzoğlu
Athlete Queens of Modern Turkey: Beauty Pageants and Modernization
Muhammet Nurullah Çakmak
Countering Extremism in Iraq: The Influence of Ali Sistani
Hogr Tarkhani | Isaac Andakian
BOOK REVIEWS
Sareta Ashraph, Carmen Cheung Ka-Man, and Joana Cook, Holding ISIL Accountable: Prosecuting Crimes in Iraq and Syria
Reviewed by Usman Anwar | Muhammad Atif
Samer Bakkour, The End of the Middle East Peace Process: The Failure of US Diplomacy
Reviewed by Hamdullah Baycar