Disbanding PKK has wider ramifications for the Kurds

On May 12, 2025, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê or PKK) announced its dissolution after four decades of insurgency in Türkiye. The announcement came in the wake of the call made on February 27 by Abdullah Öcalan—the incarcerated leader of the PKK—for the insurgent group to lay down arms and work towards the peaceful co-existence of Kurds and Turks. The call had come in the aftermath of the reported reset in ties between the Turkish state and PKK beginning in October 2024. The announcement is historic as it might pave the way for ending the violent Turkish-Kurdish confrontation in Türkiye and lead to a peaceful resolution.

Significance of the PKK disbandment

The PKK’s decision to disband is significant not only for the domestic politics in Türkiye but also for the transnational Kurdish struggle for recognition and autonomy. The regional ramifications become all the more important given the developments inside Syria, where the end of the Ba'athist regime has opened the doors for the formalisation of Kurdish autonomy in the north. It can also lead to an end to the military confrontation in northern Iraq, which had witnessed a notable upsurge in conflict between Turkish armed forces and PKK militants in the past decade. Nonetheless, the decision of the PKK is important foremost for the domestic political and security situation in Türkiye.

The PKK insurgency in Türkiye has intensified since the end of the peace process between March 2013 and July 2015. This had, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG), led to the killing of 7,152 people, including 1,492 Turkish security personnel, 4,786 PKK militants, 646 civilians and 226 unidentified people. The third phase of PKK insurgence since July 2015, when the PKK resumed the armed struggle after the two-year ceasefire, apparently had led to serious churn within the wider Kurdish movement in Türkiye. While the majority of these casualties have been reported in southeastern Türkiye, some have also occurred in northern Syria and Iraq during Turkish military operations on PKK camps.

How credible is the decision?

The momentum towards an end to the active fighting and resumption of peace with the Kurds in Türkiye started in the aftermath of the deadly attack claimed by PKK on October 23, 2024, on the headquarters of Turkish Aerospace Industries—a national defence manufacturing company—in Ankara which caused five deaths and 22 injuries. This prompted the Turkish armed forces to undertake massive retaliatory strikes against PKK targets inside Türkiye and hideouts in northern Syria and Iraq that caused dozens of casualties.

Although details are sketchy, the attacks and rising casualties prompted the Turkish nationalist and Kurdish leadership to seek another peace process. Reportedly, the initiative was started by Devlet Bahçeli, a Member of Parliament and Deputy Prime Minister of Türkiye and the leader of the ultra-nationalist secularist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on the behest of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They once again sought the intervention of the 76-year-old Öcalan, who has remained in solitary confinement in the İmralı Island prison in the Sea of Marmara since 1999. It was Öcalan who had founded PKK in 1978 and had led it into insurgency since 1984 until his detention from Nairobi, Kenya, in 1999.

Although the fact that Öcalan called for the disbandment of the PKK movement while in prison raises concerns that it might have been made under duress, there are some indications of credibility given that the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) leaders had met the imprisoned Kurdish leader several times since October 2024. On  February 27, 2025, it was the representatives of the DEM who had read out Öcalan’s letter to the press after meeting him in prison earlier during the day, announcing the call for disarming the PKK.

Can it help resolve the Kurdish question?  

Notwithstanding the circumstances of the announcement of the disbandment of PKK, the actual success of the move would depend on the ability of the Turkish-Kurdish peace process and the eventual resolution of the Kurdish question through a political process. For the Kurdish population in Türkiye, especially the young, the most important aspect is the respect and acknowledgment of their distinct Kurdish identity and culture by the Turkish state, government and Turkish nationalists. This would be difficult to achieve given the historical, ethnic and cultural baggage that the two groups have carried since the end of World War I and the formation of the Republic of Türkiye. 

However, what raises hope is the growing inclination among the Kurdish leadership in Türkiye of the need to shed violence and their quest for founding a credible political alternative. The generational shift in the Kurdish leadership in Türkiye is also notable. The new crop of Kurdish leaders, such as Selahattin Demirtaş, the jailed leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) who came in third in the 2014 presidential elections and who had led the Kurdish political aspirations during the 2013-15 peace process, has attracted greater socio-political following in Türkiye than the PKK. Similarly, the co-leaders of the DEM, Tülay Hatimoğulları and Tuncer Bakırhan, are more inclined towards a democratic and political process to assert Kurdish identity instead of following on the path of an armed insurgency.

Regional and geopolitical manifestation

However, it is not only the domestic Turkish situation that might have prompted Öcalan and the PKK to shed violence and seek a political recourse. The fast-changing regional geopolitical situation and the placing of the Kurdish question in it is notable. Given the changing political situation in Syria and, to an extent, the impact of the regional geopolitical shifts on Iran and Iraq had put the PKK in a disadvantaged position. The PKK had reached a stage wherein carrying on with an insurgency was no longer tenable and had become counterproductive for the broader Kurdish movement for political autonomy and self-determination, especially given the power asymmetry compared to the Turkish state and the growing casualties inflicted on it by the Turkish armed forces.

The changing regional geopolitics had also made it difficult for the PKK to continue carrying out an insurgency against Türkiye, given the situation in Syria and Iraq and the pressure from Iran against the Kurdish movement. Öcalan might also have become aware of the harm the PKK insurgency can cause for the gains made by the Kurdish movement in Syria since 2011. Although it is difficult to say anything with a degree of certainty, given the internal dynamics in Syria since the fall of Assad on December 8, 2024, the possibility of Mazloum Kobane-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) carving out a formally autonomous Syrian Kurdistan region (Rojava) in northern Syria has increased. This, if it happens, would be akin to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, and the Kurdish leadership in Türkiye understands that the continuation of the PKK insurgency would weaken the position of the Kurdish movement in Syria.

The Kurds in Iran, too, have found themselves at the receiving end of the Iranian state crackdown and violence in the wake of the women’s rights movement after the killing of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September 2022. Here again, the Kurdish aspirations for political, economic and cultural recognition have remained endangered. In Iraq, too, the Kurds have faced challenges in the wake of the 2017 independence referendum that brought the four regional countries with substantive Kurdish populations—Iran, Iraq, Syria and Türkiye—together to thwart any possibility of a forward movement in Kurdish aspiration.

Looking ahead

Under these circumstances, the news about the disbandment of the PKK underlines the shifts in the Kurdish aspirations and the quest for recognition and autonomy. It is also indicative of the broader churns facing the Kurdish movements across the Middle East that have remained fragmented and diffused despite their shared and collective socio-political identity. It is likely that in the times to come. The Kurds will continue to focus on carving out a space through political participation and civil society activism in their respective countries and avoid getting entangled in the regional flux that is likely to witness uncertainty and turbulence as had been viewed, at least since the 2010-11 Arab Spring.

 The author is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, JNU, New Delhi. 

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.

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