Թուրք-քրդական հաշտեցման ընթացիկ ճգնաժամի մասին (դեկտեմբեր, 2025 թ.)

ԱՌՎԱԿ կենտրոնի մեկնաբանությունը, 10.12.2025 թ. ^[1]

In late November 2025, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) issued an ultimatum to the Republic of Turkey, demanding amnesty and the release of its founder and ideologue, Abdullah Öcalan. As justification, the PKK cited the organization’s fulfillment of its obligations under the bilateral peace deal. Should these demands not be met, the party threatened to cease adhering to the conditions of the Turkish-Kurdish de-escalation process. This was announced to the AFR news agency by one of the PKK commanders, Amed Malazgirt, who is based in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. The high-ranking Kurdish commander also stated that Ankara must “recognize the Kurdish people of Turkey” at the official and constitutional level.

The PKK’s statement verified the earlier assessments voiced by the ARVAK Center regarding the growing destabilization of the peace process, which foresaw the demilitarization of the most influential Kurdish armed structure in exchange for Öcalan’s release and the exclusive transformation of the PKK’s activities into the political sphere.

It’s evident that Ankara and the PKK had agreed to execute their obligations in a parallel regime, adhering to a specific “roadmap” that regulated the step-by-step actions of the parties. According to the Kurdish command, Turkey violated this regulation by continuing the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan in the penal institution on Imralı Island, despite the PKK demonstrating a sufficient degree of fulfillment of the Turkish conditions for his release.

The Turkish side, in turn, may believe that the PKK is not actively fulfilling its part of the conditions and is concealing the real potential of the organization’s armed wing, sacrificing only an insignificant portion of its military arsenal for the sake of peace with Ankara. ARVAK has noted in its previous publications that the disarmament process of Kurdish units, which had begun in the summer, was generally sluggish, and a significant number of Kurdish fighters, who disagreed with the “peace path” of the PKK’s political wing, moved from Turkey and Iraq to Syrian Rojava (Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria). Given this, it can be assumed that Ankara is dissatisfied with the prevailing situation and fears that the promised release of A. Öcalan will not only fail to contribute to the further reconciliation process but, conversely, may provoke a new large-scale Kurdish armed liberation movement.

In any case, the Turkish-Kurdish peace process is either in a state of definitive failure or on the verge of it. This is contributed to by two fundamental reasons.

Firstly, the parties are mutually unable to overcome institutional and psychological mistrust, which is conditioned by the long and multi-faceted history of the conflict, including repeated failed attempts of reconciliation. The last such initiative took place between 2013 and 2015, but it also ended in fiasco due to the inability or unwillingness of the PKK’s political leadership to consolidate all its factions for the unconditional execution of the agreement’s parameters with the Turkish side. Simultaneously, Turkish authorities initiated harsh repressive measures against the Kurdish population on their territory, which in several locations led to acts of destruction of civilians under the pretext of anti-terrorism efforts.

Secondly, the initiation of the current peace process proved to be untimely from the perspective of the regional conjuncture, which is characterized by radical geopolitical shifts and the formation of a new regional balance of power in the Middle East. Ankara was seemingly forced to offer the Kurds a peaceful settlement of the conflict precisely during this period, fearing that the reformatting of regional borders could imply the creation of “Greater Kurdistan” – a project interpreted in Turkey as a long-term strategic plan by the U.S. and Israel. This refers to a hypothetical project (viewed by many experts as a conspiracy narrative) of recognizing Kurdish statehood across the entire area of their compact residence (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran). Proponents of this interpretation believe that the U.S. and Israel would consequently gain a reliable and combat-capable strategic ally in the Middle East, capable of defending their vital interests in the region from the threats of Pan-Arabism, Turkish Neo-Ottomanism, and Iranian Pan-Shiism. Given that the PKK is an ideologically founded, rather than a clan-tribal structure, and possesses the most effective combat units within the Kurdish environment, Ankara’s alarm appears justified.

Ankara was likely attempting to implement a strategy of preventive measures – a “game of anticipation” – and create a platform for constructive political dialogue with the Kurds, which would at least minimize the risk of a large-scale pan-Kurdish armed uprising across the region, hypothetically supported by Western states and Israel. Thus, one can hypothesize that Ankara initiated the “peace process” and political dialogue during this specific chronological period to de-incentivize the Kurds and their most significant structure – the PKK – from organizing a new large-scale anti-Turkish uprising, and also to sow internal Kurdish contradictions between clan and political factions, thereby impeding their consolidation in the context of Israeli-Western plans.

However, due to objective reasons, the Turkish “preventive strategy” which coincided with the military-political disintegration in Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon, is objectively incapable of ensuring the critically needed military-political deactivation of Syrian, Iraqi, and especially Turkish Kurds for Ankara.

Regardless of the real existence of the “Greater Kurdistan” project, the Kurdish factor has already transformed into a strategically significant element in the regional politics of global centers of power striving to increase their influence in the region after the displacement of Iran and Russia.

The Kurdish agenda currently holds particular interest for the U.S., its Western allies, and Israel in the context of constructing a new geopolitical architecture for the region, where this ethnic community already claims the status of a critically important ally of the aforementioned centers of power. Under these conditions, the Turkish “peace initiative” may have yielded short-term tactical benefits for Ankara, but it is unlikely to neutralize the growing regional threat in the long-term strategic perspective. It is evident that, anticipating new significant transformations in the region, neither the Turkish authorities nor the PKK’s military-political establishment hold great hopes regarding the “peace process”. The conclusion that follows is that Abdullah Öcalan will most likely not be released, and Kurdish armed formations will not disarm voluntarily.

[1] The original (in Rus.) was posted on our website on 09.12.2025.