The declaration last week by imprisoned PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) leader Abdullah Ocalan of a ceasefire in his movement’s long insurgency against Turkey is a significant moment, deriving from major changes currently underway in the region’s strategic situation.
At the same time, it does not indicate the conclusion of the long conflict between the movement and the Turkish state. Peace processes between the Turkish government and the PKK are not new. There have been three separate ceasefires between the movement and the AKP government of President Recep Tayepp Erdogan, which has held power in Turkey consecutively since 2002.
The last such diplomatic effort collapsed in 2015 after two years of ceasefire. A period of intense and bloody fighting between Ankara and the OKK in Turkey’s southeast (known by the Kurds as Barku) followed.
So if Ocalan’s declaration foes not by itself signal the conclusion of the PKK-Ankara war, what is it nevertheless likely to herald? And does the declaration have broader regional implications, perhaps most importantly with regard to events now under way in Syria?
The days following Ocalan’s declaration
IN THE DAYS that followed Ocalan’s declaration, the PKK’s executive committee rapidly issued a statement saying that it would comply with and implement Ocalan’s words. As a result, its armed force would henceforth not “engage in armed action unless there is an attack against it.”
Their statement included a demand that a congress of the movement be held to discuss the matter of the ceasefire and the PKK’s approval of it, and that the imprisoned Ocalan be permitted to “personally guide” the congress.
These statements are as notable for what they omit, as for what they include. They do not, obviously, announce the dissolution of the PKK. They also do not indicate its imminent disarmament. They constitute a decision to cease military activity, thereby allowing a renewed diplomatic process to begin.
The decision should be seen against the background of the military situation between the sides. Skillful Turkish use of drone warfare has reduced the PKK’s ability to carry out effective military measures against Ankara’s forces in recent years.
The PKK’s decision to try and hold ground in southeast Turkey, in 2015, may retrospectively be seen as a major error, resulting in the decimation of wide swathes of its heartland. It remains to be seen, however, whether the political process now beginning will gather momentum. It is difficult to see Erdogan, and still less Devlet Bahceli, his ultra-nationalist partner in government, agreeing to the kind of constitutional changes envisaged by the Kurdish as the basis for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
In the absence of such a resolution, it is likely that the issues that caused the conflict to erupt in the first place will simply resurface, perhaps managed by a different set of players.
What are the broader regional implications?
WHAT ARE the broader regional implications, most importantly with regard to Syria? It is important to note that Ocalan’s declaration did not mention Syria, and appears to be intended to apply to Turkey alone. Certainly, the PKK sees it this way, viewing Ankara and its policies regarding Kurds as the center of the problem, and therefore the matter most urgently requiring a solution.
Meanwhile, Gen. Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), at a press conference following Ocalan’s statement, emphasized that the call was to the PKK’s forces and not the SDF. “It is nothing related to us here in Syria,” he told reporters.
He added that he wished for the success of the peace process in Turkey, not least because this would mean that Turkey would have “no excuse to attack our region.”
A Kurdish analyst who knows the PKK well was less diplomatic in his assessment, telling The Jerusalem Post that “Syrian Kurds are not going to lay down their arms and surrender to Turkey. The goal of Turkey is the destruction of the Syrian Kurdish region.”
This seems a fair assessment. Ankara has long made clear that it regards the SDF and Abdi as representing simply the Syrian franchise of the PKK. The Turkish president, speaking shortly after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, declared: “The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons.” This stance is reflected in the ongoing Turkish air and drone campaign against SDF-controlled territory in Syria.
For Turkey, the internal diplomatic process vis-àvis the PKK thus forms part of a larger strategy, intended to weaken, isolate, and eventually eliminate Kurdish resistance. Turkey scored a major achievement with the entry of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) into Damascus. Ankara is now the main strategic ally of the new Islamist regime in Syria.
Turkish security personnel, according to reliable sources, are in Damascus overseeing the creation of the new regime’s security structures. Yet the HTS victory is far from complete. The SDF, aligned with the US in ongoing operations against the Islamic State, remains in control of Syria east of the Euphrates River. This area, contsituting around 30% of Syria, contains the country’s oil and gas resources.
HTS and its leader, Ahmedal-Sharaa, have consistently opposed any notion of federalism or Kurdish autonomy in the Syria they wish to create. The recent “national dialogue” conference hosted by the new regime excluded all Kurdish representation.
But HTS is stymied by a lack of manpower. The movement had only 40,000 fighters when it took control in Damascus. SDF numbers around 100,000. The continued presence of 2,000 US service personnel in the SDF-controlled area further limits any possibility that HTS might try to crush the SDF by force.
Emerging peace processing seems to be opening move of Turkish diplomatic gambit
The emerging peace processing Turkey appears to be the opening move of a Turkish diplomatic gambit, in which it will try to link the fate of the PKK to the SDF. The Turkish position seems to be that if the former is disarming, then the latter should follow suit, allowing Ankara’s Islamist allies in Damascus to assume control over eastern Syria and its resources.
The reality is that Ankara’s attempt to portray the SDF leadership as merely a branch or franchise of the PKK is simplistic. The Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) was indeed created by PKK-linked activists as a Syrian Kurdish self defense force in 2011. But over the last decade, an independent Syrian Kurdish leadership has outgrown its roots. Today, it is the most powerful and most reliable ally of the US and pro-Western forces in Syria.
The renewed, fledgling diplomatic process in Turkey does not have guaranteed success in Turkey itself. Perhaps most significantly, however, it represents a challenge and potentially a danger to the Syrian Kurds, possibly presaging an attempt by Turkey to isolate the SDF, misrepresent it, and convince the US administration that its best bet is backing the Sunni jihadis of HTS.
From this point of view, Erdogan’s “peace process” doesn’t have to succeed. It just has to last long enough to destroy the SDF.
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