The Partiya Karkari Kurdistan, or the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has disbanded itself after defining the struggle of Turkish Kurds for autonomy with its guerrilla warfare for decades. The disbandment comes after a ‘historic’ decision taken during a congress held in northern Iraq in early May this year.
The decision to disband was made following calls for peace and democratic process by Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the PKK, from the prison in Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara off the Turkiye coast, where he has been kept in solitary confinement since 1999.
The move follows months of talks between the ‘rebel’ and representatives of the Turkish government, initiated by ultra-nationalist MP Devlet Bahceli of the Nationalist Movement Party and joined by pro-Kurdish MPs of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM). The public announcement made by Mr. Ocalan on February 27 culminated in 30 PKK members destroying their weapons at a ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region, on July 11.
Conflict in West Asia
“Given the rising fascist pressure and exploitation around the globe and current bloodbath in the Middle East, our people are more than ever in need of a peaceful, free, equal and democratic life. In such a context, we fully feel and comprehend the greatness, righteousness and urgency of the step we have taken,” the Group for Peace and Democratic Society, formed to accelerate the process of democratic change in place of the PKK, said in a statement following the ceremonial laying-down of weapons.
“The PKK was born in the 20th century, in the most violent epoch of the history of humanity, amidst the two world wars, under the shadow of the experience of real socialism and the cold war around the world,” Mr. Ocalan had said in his statement from prison.
Mr. Ocalan, who had transitioned his ideology from Marxist-Leninism into ‘democratic confederalism’ during his imprisonment, alludes his decision to disarm to the democratic steps taken by the Turkish government on Kurdish issues, along with regional developments, which rendered armed resistance with no meaning.
Democratic confederalism, for Mr. Ocalan, is the contrasting paradigm of the oppressed people. He describes it as a borderless, community-based democracy that promotes ecological living and radical gender equality.
“Respect for identities, free self-expression, democratic self-organisation of each segment of society based on their own socio-economic and political structures are only possible through the existence of a democratic society and political space,” he said in his call for disarmament.
In his view, a separate nation-state, federation, administrative autonomy, or culturalist solution for the Kurds fail to answer Turkish society’s needs. “There is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realisation of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a speech on July 12, acknowledged the burning of weapons and announced the establishment of a commission to talk about the legal needs in the Turkish Parliament for the path to peace.
He also admitted that previous governments had pursued policies that contributed to conflict and said Turkiye had spent two trillion dollars on the war with the PKK, an important shift in tone.
Persecuted minority
Founded in 1978 by Mr. Ocalan, the PKK followed a Marxist-Leninist doctrine in response to persecution faced by stateless Kurdish people and to support their aspirations to establish an independent Kurdish state. Their main targets were the fascist right, Turkish left, state agents, and, above all, Kurdish landlords who worked in tandem with the state to exploit the Kurdish masses.
The PKK launched its armed insurgency in Turkiye in 1984, following decisions made at its second party congress in Daraa of Syria in 1982. Led by Mahsum Korkmaz, also known as Agit, the first commander of the PKK’s military forces, the group attacked a gendarmerie station in the Siirt province of Turkiye, killing a soldier. This was followed up by a raid on a police outpost in the same province and marked the start of the armed rebellion for Kurdistan.
While the Kurdish masses were initially shocked by the PKK’s violence, the increasingly degrading treatment they endured at the hands of the Turkish state, including military sweeps, arbitrary arrests, and widespread torture, made them receptive to the PKK.
Regional ripples
However, Mr. Ocalan’s call for peace was not just for the PKK. “All groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself,” he said. “All groups” indicate that he means all PKK offshoots in Syria and Iran.
While the PKK has grown to be the face of the Kurdish cause, it is not the sole unit fighting for it. The Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, the Free Life of Kurdistan Party (PJAK) in Iran, and the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PCDK) in Iraq are all allied with the PKK. The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) serves as an umbrella organisation for all the groups, and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), formed in 2012 during the Syrian civil war, serves as the armed wing for the cause.
While the PKK’s disarmament and dispersal might accelerate the peace process in Turkiye, questions remain over the future of the Kurdish struggle for identity and autonomy. Oil fields in the Iraqi Kurdistan came under unclaimed attack by explosives-laden drones in the days following the dispersal of the PKK, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. “The suicide drones that targeted oil fields in the Kurdistan Region last week flew from Dibis, Kirkuk,” Aziz Ahmad, deputy chief of staff to Iraqi Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, said in a social media post.
In Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with links to the PKK, has been in negotiation with Turkiye regarding its future in the region following the fall of the Assad regime. The interim government in Syria, led by former jihadist Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, wants the SDF to lay down arms and integrate itself into the state.
While the PKK’s announcement to disarm was welcomed by SDF leader Mazloum Abdi, he said his group would not disarm and that Mr. Ocalan’s decision did not extend to Syria.
The PKK’s disarmament has essentially brought the Kurdish struggle to a crossroads. If the democratic process in Turkiye proves successful, it could motivate Kurds in other countries in the Kurdish heartland, including Syria, Iraq and Iran, to facilitate a similar peaceful quest for autonomy. But the risk of the process going off track and pushing back their struggle by decades is something that keeps the fragmented Kurdish societies sceptical.
