Latest news with #KurdishStruggle
Jordan Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Jordan Times
The PKK's dissolution: A calculated move or a genuine path to peace?
In a development that caught many observers off guard, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has declared its formal dissolution, bringing an apparent end to its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state. While headlines portray this as a possible breakthrough for regional peace, the timing and conditions surrounding the announcement raise more questions than answers. Is this a genuine pivot toward reconciliation, or a strategic maneuver by a beleaguered movement under immense pressure? The PKK's announcement did not arise in a vacuum. Years of sustained Turkish military pressure, particularly through cross-border operations such as 'Claw-Lock' in northern Iraq, have considerably weakened the group's logistical capabilities and territorial presence. Moreover, Turkey's extensive surveillance and drone warfare have left the PKK with few safe havens. On the geopolitical front, the PKK finds itself increasingly isolated. Labeled a terrorist organisation by both the EU and the US, the group has lost international sympathy. Even within broader Kurdish political circles, especially in Syria and Iraq, competing factions like the PYD may be urging the PKK to scale down its militancy so as not to jeopardize hard-won political leverage. The PKK's retreat may create a vacuum in the Kurdish geopolitical landscape. In Iraq, Iran-backed militias could exploit this power shift to expand their influence. In Syria, the YPG, though organizationally distinct from the PKK, may face increased scrutiny from Turkey. Europe, meanwhile, is placed in a diplomatic dilemma. Should the EU reassess the PKK's designation if it truly disbands? This could significantly affect Kurdish diaspora activism across European capitals. The United States must also walk a tightrope, balancing its alliance with NATO-member Turkey against its reliance on Syrian Kurdish forces in the fight against the Daesh terror group. History cautions against premature optimism. Militant groups have often declared pauses not as a path to peace, but as opportunities to rearm or rebrand. The PKK might be rebranding, transitioning into a civilian political movement by leveraging legal Kurdish parties within Turkey's parliamentary system. Alternatively, it may be regrouping, using the ceasefire to restructure its fragmented ranks. A further risk is splintering, with hardline offshoots potentially rejecting the ceasefire and undermining any future negotiations. Several factors could enhance the prospects for a lasting peace between Turkey and the PKK. First, mutual exhaustion after four decades of conflict may prompt both sides to acknowledge the diminishing returns of continued warfare and seek compromise. Second, international mediation, particularly through a US, or EU-backed framework, could provide critical incentives for disarmament, offering political recognition or economic aid in exchange for credible steps toward peace. Beyond domestic resistance, external interference poses another risk. Regional actors like Iran and Syria, wary of a stable Turkish-Kurdish détente, may seek to undermine negotiations to preserve their own strategic leverage. Unless these challenges are directly addressed, even the most promising peace efforts risk unraveling. This announcement may be the closest the conflict has come to a peaceful resolution in decades. But let's be clear, disarmament is not peace. Real peace requires political courage, cultural recognition, and international accountability. Mahmoud Ali Abu-Rumman is a seasoned expert in financial oversight and environmental governance, with a distinguished career spanning over 30 years in public service, international peacekeeping, and sustainability strategy. A former Colonel in Jordan's Public Security Directorate, he brings deep institutional insight and leadership experience. His background also includes contributions to United Nations missions and national policymaking in financial and environmental sectors. He currently serves as the Financial Controller at the Jordan Press Foundation (Al-Rai).
Jordan Times
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Jordan Times
Pro-Kurd party seeks 'confidence-building measures' from Ankara as PKK disbands
Men watch the announcement of PKK's dissolution on the News on a television screen inside a traditional Turkish tea house, in Diyarbakir, on May 12, 2025 (AFP photo) ANKARA — Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM party said Tuesday that it wanted to see "confidence-building measures" from the government a day after the Kurdish militant PKK announced the end of four decades of armed struggle. Tuncer Bakirhan, co-chair of DEM, which played a key role in facilitating contacts with the PKK, urged the government to take concrete steps before the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha which starts on June 6 in Turkey."Making some humane, concrete and confidence-building steps without postponing them until after the holiday is the right way for Turkey to move forward," he told reporters."We expect the government to fulfil its duties and responsibilities in this regard."His remarks came a day after the PKK said it was disbanding following seven months of shuttle diplomacy in which DEM passed messages between jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan and Turkey's political far, it is not clear how the PKK's declaration will benefit the Kurds who make up about 20 percent of Turkey's 85 million population, nor what DEM will get in exchange for facilitating the observers are expecting the government to show a new openness to the are hoping the move will result in political prisoners being freed, Bakirhan said."The demands we hear most are about releasing sick prisoners before Eid al-Adha... that would turn it into a double holiday," he said."It would be reasonable to expect some steps, even symbolic ones, from the government," Adnan Celik, an expert at the Paris School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences [EHESS], told AFP. "Freeing [Selahattin] Demirtas would be a strong gesture likely to speed up implementation of this historic decision," he said, referring to the former leader of the first pro-Kurdish party to hold seats in Turkey's parliament.
Times
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
After 40 years, the Kurdish PKK has promised to disarm and disband
Ever since the victorious allies declined to carve a homeland for the Kurds out of the carcass of the Ottoman empire in the aftermath of the First World War they have struggled to establish themselves as a sovereign people. Numbering between 30 and 45 million (no one seems to know how many exactly), the Kurds are victims of historical and geographical misfortune. Their mountainous, landlocked territory straddles the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, each of which have at times treated them to a diet of brutal repression. Out of this struggle sprang the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, which since 1984 has fought for independence, or at least autonomy, from Turkey, home to half of all Kurds. Now, at last, the game appears
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ocalan: founder of the Kurdish militant PKK who authored its end
Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is an icon to many Kurds but a "terrorist" to many within wider Turkish society. After a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, the PKK said on Monday it was disbanding and ending its armed struggle. The move came after Ocalan issued a historic call on February 27 for his fighters to lay down their arms in a major step towards ending the decades-long conflict. Now 76, Ocalan has been held in solitary confinement since 1999 on Imrali prison island near Istanbul. But since October, when Turkey tentatively moved to reset ties with the PKK, Ocalan has been visited several times by lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party. For many Turks, the PKK leader is public enemy number one. He founded the group in 1978. Six years later, it began an insurgency demanding independence and later broader autonomy in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast. A Marxist-inspired group, the PKK was blacklisted as a "terror" organisation by Ankara, Washington, Brussels and many other Western countries. - An olive branch - Attitudes began shifting in October when ultra-nationalist MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offered Ocalan an olive branch if he would publicly renounce violence. The next day, the former guerrilla, who embodies the decades-long Kurdish rebellion, received his first family visit in four years. He sent back a message saying he alone could shift the Kurdish question "from an arena of conflict and violence to one of law and politics", later offering assurances he was "ready to... make the call". Ankara's move came shortly before Syrian rebels overthrew ruler Bashar al-Assad, upending the regional balance of power and thrusting Turkey's complex relationship with the Kurds into the spotlight. - From village life to militancy - Ocalan was born on April 4, 1949, one of six siblings in a mixed Turkish-Kurdish peasant family in Omerli, a village in Turkey's southeast. His mother tongue is Turkish. He became a left-wing activist while studying politics at university in Ankara and was first jailed in 1972. He set up the PKK six years later, then spent years on the run, launching the movement's armed struggle in 1984. Taking refuge in Syria, he led the fight from there, causing friction between Damascus and Ankara. Forced out in 1998, he moved from Russia to Italy to Greece in search of a haven, ending up at the Greek consulate in Kenya, where US agents got wind of his presence and tipped off Turkey. He was arrested on February 15, 1999, after being lured into a vehicle in a Hollywood-style operation by Turkish security forces. Sentenced to death, he escaped the gallows when Turkey started abolishing capital punishment in 2002, living out the rest of his days in isolation on Imrali prison island in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul. For many Kurds, he is a hero whom they refer to as "Apo" (uncle). But Turks often call him "bebek katili" (baby killer) for ruthless tactics that include the bombing of civilian targets. - Jailed but still leading - With Ocalan's arrest, Ankara thought it had decapitated the PKK. But even from his cell he continued to lead, ordering a ceasefire that lasted from 1999 until 2004. In 2005, he ordered followers to renounce the idea of an independent Kurdish state and campaign for autonomy in their respective countries. Tentative moves to resolve Turkey's "Kurdish problem" began in 2008 and several years later Ocalan became involved in the first unofficial peace talks, when Erdogan was prime minister. Led by then spy chief Hakan Fidan -- who is now foreign minister -- the talks raised Kurdish hopes for a solution with their future within Turkey's borders. But the effort collapsed in July 2015, sparking one of the deadliest chapters in the conflict. The government has defended its de facto silencing of Ocalan, saying he failed to convince the PKK of the need for peace. Seen as the world's largest stateless people, Kurds were left without a country when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. Although most live in Turkey, where they make up around a fifth of the population, the Kurds are also spread across Syria, Iraq and Iran. Turkey's widescale use of combat drones has pushed most Kurdish fighters into northern Syria and Iraq, where Ankara has continued its raids. bur-hmw/gil
