Eurasia Press & News
A renewed peace effort between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has reignited hopes for a resolution to the four-decade-long Kurdish insurgency and the broader Kurdish question in Turkey. In a historic announcement on February 27, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned on Turkey’s Imrali Island since 1999, called on the PKK and all affiliated factions to lay down their arms and dissolve themselves. The PKK, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state for Kurdish rights since 1984.
The stakes of this renewed peace initiative are high. After a decade of intense conflict, its success or failure will have profound implications for Turkey’s domestic stability and regional dynamics, particularly in Syria and Iraq. This moment presents a critical opportunity for Washington to engage constructively and encourage Ankara, Damascus, and Kurdish groups to pursue a path toward lasting peace.
Renewed Peace Efforts
This is not the first time the Turkish government, the PKK, and the broader Kurdish movement in Turkey have attempted to reach a peace deal. Previous peace efforts between 2009 and 2015 ultimately failed, leaving Kurdish grievances unresolved and prompting Turkey to launch military campaigns against PKK positions in Iraq. The latest signs of renewed dialogue emerged last October when Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), hinted at negotiations and suggested that Öcalan might be allowed to address the Turkish parliament or be moved from Imrali to house arrest. This is particularly notable given that Bahçeli’s MHP is an ultranationalist party in a governing coalition with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Unlike in the early 2010s peace talks, Erdoğan has not taken a leading role in this round of negotiations. Instead, he has largely remained silent, though he recently offered a cautious endorsement of the peace talks, warning that a breakdown would result in Ankara “eliminating” the last PKK guerrilla.
Challenges to the Process
Several obstacles could derail the peace process. On the Kurdish side, it remains unclear whether the PKK leadership in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains will comply with Öcalan’s call to disarm and dissolve. While the PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire on March 1, it conditioned full disarmament on the establishment of a “legal framework” for peace — without specifying what such a framework would entail. Öcalan himself reportedly told pro-Kurdish parliamentarians who visited him in prison that legal and democratic assurances would be necessary for his initiative to succeed. While some sources say Turkey is willing to introduce legal measures or constitutional amendments to formalize a peace deal, as of now, there is no clear indication that it would actually do so. Additionally, despite ongoing peace efforts, the Turkish military continues to bomb PKK and SDF positions in Iraq and Syria, which could lead the Kurdish parties to question Turkey’s commitment to a peaceful resolution and prompt them to abandon the fragile process.
Another major challenge is the political calculus of the AKP-MHP coalition. Erdoğan’s primary motivation for pursuing negotiations could be to extend his presidency beyond 2028. He would need the support of over 60 pro-Kurdish parliamentarians to pass constitutional amendments allowing him to seek another term.
At the same time, deeper strategic factors may be influencing Ankara’s calculations. The shifting regional landscape following the October 7 attacks by Hamas, the increasing dominance of Israel, and Iran’s declining regional influence have all altered Turkey’s strategic outlook. Peace with the PKK — and, more broadly, with Kurdish factions in Syria — would allow Ankara to consolidate its regional gains over the past decade.
Stabilizing Syria
The collapse of the 2015 peace talks between Turkey and the PKK led to an escalation of Turkish military operations in Syria. Ankara views the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as an extension of the PKK, even though claims of direct organizational links between the PKK and the SDF remain, at best, contested. The SDF’s core unit, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), are both part of the Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization of which the PKK is the main component. In his late February message, Öcalan called for “all factions” and “all groups” affiliated with the PKK to lay down arms. SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi rejected on February 27 the notion that Öcalan’s call for the PKK has any bearing on the SDF.
The SDF is America’s primary on-the-ground partner in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) and controls nearly one-third of the country’s territory. However, Turkey and the Syrian factions it backs have launched multiple military offensives since 2015, capturing significant areas previously held by the SDF or its affiliates in northern Syria.
On March 10, Abdi and Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed an eight-point agreement in Damascus, calling for the integration of the SDF and its governing institutions into the Syrian state.
Syria remains a crucial arena for Turkey. Having been deeply involved in the country’s crisis since the early days of the uprising, Ankara now wields significant influence over opposition groups and aims to secure the long-term benefits of its involvement. Turkish businesses stand to gain substantially from Syria’s eventual reconstruction, which is expected to require between $250 billion and $400 billion in investment.
At the same time, resolving its conflict with the PKK and SDF would enable Turkey to prevent rival actors — especially Iran and Israel — from forging alliances with Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq that could challenge Ankara’s regional ascendance in recent years.
Stabilizing Iraq
A peace deal between Turkey and the PKK would also have far-reaching effects on northern Iraq. Turkey has conducted military operations against PKK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan since the early 1990s, and since 2015 these operations have intensified. According to Community Peacemaker Teams, a local conflict-monitoring group, Turkish forces launched over 2,100 attacks on alleged PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan throughout 2023 and the first half of 2024. Hundreds of Iraqi Kurdish border villages remain abandoned due to the ongoing conflict.
Meanwhile, in recent years, Sinjar in Iraq’s Nineveh province has become a major flashpoint. The PKK established a presence there in 2014 after playing a key role in rescuing Yazidis from ISIS, but since then the area has been occasionally targeted by Turkish airstrikes.
The continued hostilities between Turkey and the PKK have added another layer of instability to Iraqi Kurdistan at a time when the autonomous region is already under pressure from Iran and its allied militias. The United States, which has historically maintained strong ties with both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad, has a vested interest in reducing tensions in northern Iraq.
Recommendations for U.S. Policy
Turkey is a key U.S. ally and a NATO member, with an important role in the shifting geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East, southern Caucasus, and Eastern Europe. A lasting peace between Ankara and the PKK would eliminate one of the longest-running conflicts in the region that has the potential to undermine Turkey along its southern borders.
Although Turkey is unlikely to accept direct foreign mediation in its negotiations with the PKK, the United States can play a constructive role by publicly supporting the peace process. The PKK’s leadership has significantly reduced its demands to broader democratization in Turkey, no longer calling for statehood or even decentralization. Washington should press Ankara to capitalize on this historic opportunity and reach a dignified and fair settlement with the Kurdish movement.
In Syria, the United States has a more direct role to play. As the primary backer of the SDF, Washington facilitated recent negotiations between the SDF and the new Syrian government. On March 11, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed Washington’s support for the recent deal between Sharaa and Abdi. Ensuring a fair agreement on the SDF’s integration into the Syrian security apparatus and the recognition of Kurdish rights in Syria would help build a unified and more stable state.
However, Washington must tread carefully. While Ankara and Damascus may favor integrating SDF elements individually rather than as a cohesive unit into Syria’s new military and security apparatus, this approach risks allowing the more radical armed factions within the new government to gain dominance. The recent massacres of local Alawites and some Christians in western Syria underscore that Damascus’ security forces cannot yet be trusted. This was reaffirmed in Rubio’s March 9 statement, in which he condemned the violence and vowed to protect minority communities in Syria.
Fully disbanding the SDF within Syria’s new apparatus would eliminate the last major barrier to more radical and unruly elements seizing control of the new Syria. Even if the United States fully withdraws its troops from Syria, it should leverage other available tools and incentives — such as the removal or imposition of sanctions — to prevent post-Assad Syria from becoming a hub of regional instability and a magnet for extremist elements from across the region and beyond. Hence, a more prudent strategy would be to preserve the SDF’s military structure as much as possible within the emerging state.
On this issue, a divergence of interests exists between Washington and Ankara, which American policymakers must recognize and manage. In a worst case scenario, the United States should carefully dissect the Turkey and Syria cases to ensure that if peace efforts within Turkey fail, it does not automatically weaken the SDF’s position in Syria or derail SDF-Damascus negotiations.
In Iraq, Washington should also encourage an end to Turkish-PKK clashes and push for the full implementation of the Sinjar Agreement signed in 2020, which calls for the removal of PKK-affiliated forces and factions allied with Iran from the area and strengthens the position of its allied KRG.
It should be kept in mind that failure to achieve peace between Turkey and the PKK, as well as between the SDF and Turkey-backed Damascus, and a return to intense conflict in Iraq and Syria would create an opportunity for Iran to further destabilize Syria and northern Iraq as a means of retaliating against Turkey. Iranian officials, already angered by the new regional dynamics following Bashar al-Assad’s fall last December, could exploit renewed hostilities to advance their strategic interests and undermine a nascent regional order that might otherwise align with U.S. interests. Iran is well positioned to do so through Iraqi armed factions aligned with Tehran, leveraging Iraq’s long shared border with Syria to its strategic objectives.
