Thoughts on Öcalan’s Call for Peace
Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley
University of Cambridge and Peace in Kurdistan
March 7, 2025
To my brother Brian,
Greetings from the bastion of Babylon, the University of Cambridge, the brain of the beast. You have expressed your concerns about the dubious sagacity of the “tactical” decision of the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan to call on the PKK to put down its arms and effectively to dissolve. Such a move, you insist, would leave the movement exposed to the forces of imperialism and internal colonialism, and sadly bereft of the capacity for self-defence. This scepticism on your part is understandable, and shared by many who are close to the movement, even if the charismatic appeal of Öcalan has thus far proven sufficient to avoid any major fissures amongst the cadres or the leadership. For now, the movement remains united in support of Öcalan’s call for peace.
The ceasefire by the PKK constitutes a crucial first step in the direction of peace; now it is the Turkish state’s turn to make a move. Rumours have it that Öcalan’s inhumane prison conditions will be ameliorated, and that the very popular politician Selahattin Demirtas will be set free, along with other Kurdish political prisoners.
There is a peace process underway, even if the Turkish authorities refuse to admit it. What strikes many as defeatist is Öcalan’s shift away from the embrace of the goal of not only an independent nation-state, but even federalism or autonomy or so-called culturalist approaches. Instead, all he is demanding is “the recognition of democratic politics,” alongside a vaguely-defined “legal dimension.” Let us translate this demand as thus for democracy and the rule of law. One could argue that this is more minimalist than the “democratic republic” and the “democratic nation” he had called for in the Road Map in 2009. But there is something of the same spirit in the most recent call for peace. The time has come for the weapons to fall silent, so that democratic voices can be heard. The democratic republic creates the political space in which more maximalist programs such as democratic autonomy or democratic confederalism can be pursued.
Where the Road Map seems to diverge from the more recent call for peace has to do with the crucial question of self-defence. Öcalan had called for the PKK to lay down its arms before; but he had never called for the organization to disband. To the contrary, he warned against the dual dangers – of the PKK acting like a state, on the one hand, and of succumbing to the monopoly of violence of the state, on the other. Democracy requires the capacity for self-defence, he had always insisted. Now he seems willing to abandon this principle, in the hopes that opening up the space for democratic politics will render unnecessary any recourse to self-defence. A Faustian bargain, per chance.
Many say that the war between the Turkish state and the PKK has resulted in a stalemate, in which neither can defeat the other, even if the suffering is concentrated asymmetrically on the side of the Kurds. Some have speculated that the introduction of drone warfare by the Turkish state has decisively shifted the balance of forces in its favour, and that Öcalan’s alleged capitulation is in recognition and consummation of the PKK’s effective defeat.
It is worth noting that Öcalan has been calling for peace since 1993, even if he has never called before for the PKK’s dissolution. He does not repent for having brought the PKK into existence. He thinks that, in that time, it played a positive role in spreading Kurdish consciousness, and therefore in forging a mobilised nation. Though he never cites Fanon, there is something of a Fanonian flavour to his treatment of violence. For there is a moment when it serves as a cleansing force, and proves capable of uniting the nation. On this both Fanon and Öcalan agree. Even so, according to Öcalan, this moment has passed. And a spiral of violence and repression, as diagnosed by Helder Da Camara, has ensued. Now we are left with trauma and with mental disorder on all sides, as a result of this war. Over 40,000 have been killed, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been displaced, thousands of villages razed to the ground, the war has been brutal. The state terror has been particularly intense, and there is innocent blood on the PKK’s hands, too.
The spiral of violence consumes with it the space for democratic politics. It contributes to the exacerbation of fascist tendencies in the dominant hierarchical civilization. The nation-state identifies and forges its enemy within, the “terrorist,” the persecution of whom prefigures and performs the fascistic interpretation of the national imaginary.
To defuse this fascism, the spiral of violence must come to an end.
The danger is that, absent the PKK, the Kurds could find themselves at the mercy of a fascistic Turkish nation-state, without the capacity for self-defence, defenceless. Just look at what happened to the Kurds in Iraq under the Baathist regime. What’s to stop Erdogan from following authoritarian suit? Öcalan gambles here, his intuition being that a democratic opening with respect for the rule of law will erode the strength and appeal of fascism, that in an open debate, the democratic forces in Turkish and Kurdish society can win the day.
The call to disband the PKK will require guarantees for the leaders and cadres in the mountains, in relation to their reinsertion in civilian society. Rumours speak of the possibility for exile and asylum in the KRG in Iraq. But decades of living as a guerrilla will be difficult to leave behind. Especially with the terms of dissolution so loaded against the concession of any of the movement’s traditional goals, including autonomy. The steps that the Turkish authorities are willing to take are yet to be seen, but given the track records of Erdogan and Bahçeli, there is little reason to trust them.
Öcalan speaks of Turks and Kurds as siblings, and even blames the difficulties between them on the meddling of outside powers. His vision of the democratic nation differs greatly from ethnonationalist dreams of national liberation. Some interpret his seemingly pro-Turkish statements as evidence of the disingenuousness of a captive; others interpret these as evidence of Stockholm syndrome. There is certainly an appeal to an interlocutor in the Turkish state apparatus. But his copious writings on the subject matter suggest that he is indeed genuine, and thinking clearly, too.
For Öcalan, the embrace of the concept of the democratic nation, and the consummation of the democratic republic, is a way out of the impasse. It promises to create the space in which rival political imaginaries can debate and compete openly, in accordance with the dictates of democracy and the guarantees of the rule of law. It would mean an end to state terror, not only to armed insurgency. The creation of such conditions seems to Öcalan worth sacrificing any guarantees about concessions to more maximalist programs, such as democratic autonomy or democratic confederalism.
Like I say, it is a gamble. But the spiral of violence has been going on for so long now. And the balance of forces seems to be tipping progressively against the PKK. So why not give peace a chance? Let us see if peace provides fertile terrain for the spread of democratic confederal ideals and praxis.
The fate of the Kurdish revolution in Syria is intimately intertwined with developments in Turkey. The peace process of 2013-2015 broke down around the mobilization and tumultuous events associated with the siege of Kobane.
Elements in the Turkish security apparatus deemed the very existence of the revolutionary Kurdish regime in Rojava, inspired by Öcalan and organically linked with the PKK, as a grave threat to Turkish territorial integrity and national security. The war on Rojava over the past several years has been brutal, with ethnic cleansing in Afrin, and other war crimes further to the east. So concluded a People’s Tribunal in Brussels last month.
The war in Gaza was instructive for Öcalan. He took from it the lesson that blatant, illegal assault, genocide, can be committed with impunity in this new global era. There is nothing like international law capable of holding the extreme violence at bay. In this new context, Öcalan fears the unfolding of a genocide in Rojava, at the hands of the Turkish state and perhaps its Syrian proxies.
Back at the end of January, Öcalan’s nephew Omer recounted how his uncle had linked the peace process in Turkey to the fate of the greater Middle East, and had insisted that if the Kurdish issue is not resolved, “the current Gaza will become 50 Gazas.”
This is a very serious prognosis. The stakes are thus enormous, in Öcalan’s estimation. No wonder he is willing to forego any insistence on more maximalist programmatic goals.
Though truth be told, there is a certain ambiguity in Öcalan’s call for “the recognition of democratic politics,” including a “legal dimension.” This is because the way that Öcalan tends to talk about democracy is in accordance with the radical, direct-democratic tradition. Indeed, in his 5-volume Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization, he sketches a dialectical dynamic across the course of a long durée of 5,000 years of history pitting the proponents of hierarchical, dominant civilization against those who resist in democratic civilization. The language of autonomy and/or of cultural rights for the Kurds remain anathema in Turkish nationalist circles, this Öcalan is fully aware of. But the language of democracy is nevertheless widely accepted. So with the same words, Öcalan is able to communicate one minimalist message to his captors and another more radical meaning for his followers. After all, for Öcalan the democratic organization of society requires the dismantling of hierarchy in all its forms and manifestations. As such, the realization of democracy would include the dismantling of ethno-national as well as gendered systems of domination. The language of autonomy and of cultural rights, much less self-determination, is thus avoided, even as the impulse towards multinational accommodation is clearly implied.
Then there is the question of Israel, which looms large, albeit in the shadows, in deciphering the Turkish state’s willingness to negotiate with the Kurdish Freedom Movement at this moment. Tensions between Israel and Turkey have been simmering in the aftermath of October 7th, since the assault on Gaza began. The Erdogan government aligned itself squarely behind the Palestinian cause, joining the ICJ case against Israel. And after Assad fell in December 2024, the battle between the two powers for regional influence escalated further still. There are real concerns in the Turkish national security apparatus that the two countries appear on a collision course, despite the protection provided by Turkey’s membership in NATO. The Turkish state worries that the Israelis might move to consolidate their incipient support for the Kurdish SDF in Syria, as part of an attack against Turkey.
Öcalan is no fan of Israel. Lest it be forgotten, the Mossad was implicated in the so-called “international conspiracy” against him, along with the United States, of course. For him, this is no coincidence, for these are the Imperialist powers who are most determined to obstruct the self-determination of the peoples of the Middle East. Amidst a growing scepticism about their previous alliances, and with the future of NATO itself up in the air in the era of Trump, enough people in the Turkish security apparatus seem to have come around to consider that if Turks and Kurds remain divided, the Republic will be so much easier to conquer by a savvy Israeli foe.
The Turkish state, too, must realize that if it wants peace with the Kurdish Freedom Movement, Öcalan is the only person who can deliver it. He is the only one who can get the PKK to credibly commit to lay down its arms. His charismatic appeal over his followers is strong enough to get people who have sacrificed so much, and who have lived in the mountains sometimes for decades, to put down their weapons and let the words speak. Or maybe not. But if anyone can do it, it is Öcalan. And he is 75 now, mortality soon beckons. So it is now or never, and even the Turkish state seems aware of that.
But does the Turkish state really want peace, or does it instead remain committed to a politics of annihilation of its Kurdish enemy within? Only time will tell. For now, Öcalan’s courageous gamble, his embrace of democratic politics and his penchant for peace, seems certainly worthy of our support.
It could be that the Turkish state would be satisfied if it managed to split and therefore weaken the movement. Thus far the movement has remained officially united in favor of Öcalan’s call for peace, but the pulse on the social media indicates rather high levels of scepticism towards the peace process among the Kurdish public. After all, Erdogan adamantly denies that there is even a peace process underway. Recent developments are but a matter of long-overdue unilateral disarmament, according to him. The Turkish state is offering nothing approximating a negotiated political settlement, no concrete concessions to the Kurdish cause. Except for, implicitly, an end to state terror, which is not nothing.
The unity on the Turkish side, with the government including the opposition CHP in the process, has until now distinguished this round of peace negotiations from the one in 2013-2015, rendering it apparently more robust. Now is the moment to end over four decades of bloody conflict, speaks the Turkish political establishment in unison. Even if Öcalan has warned of the possibility of a coup. But the protagonism of Bahçeli, from the far-right, in the process has had an effect not altogether unsimilar to that of DeGaulle’s role in recognising Algerian independence.
Meanwhile, the assault on the Kurdish Freedom Movement continues apace. As Sarah Glynn has reported, military attacks in Iraq and in Syria continue, while in the last fortnight in Turkey, over fifty activists have been arrested, and 6,000 people with alleged links to the Peoples’ Democratic Congress are under investigation. If anything, Turkish aggression seems to be ramping up, even as the government talks of peace, Glynn plausibly concludes.
The PKK is calling for Öcalan to be set free, as a condition for its dissolution. Bahçeli had suggested that if Öcalan renounces violence and disbands the PKK, he could be released from captivity. Then again, Bahçeli had also suggested that Öcalan should be allowed to come to the Grand National Assembly to address the Turkish parliament, delivering a message to such an effect. But in the end, we got only the text and a picture of Öcalan, leaving some on the social media to push conspiracy theories about the photo allegedly being AI-generated. Certainly, the PKK’s claim that Öcalan’s presence at a Congress could facilitate the process of dissolution seems plausible. More generally, as Nelson Mandela once put it, and as Judge Essa Moussa never ceased to remind us, only a free person can negotiate. But that may be the point: are these negotiations in good faith; indeed, are they negotiations at all?
This appears to be the last chapter of a storied life for Öcalan. Revered by millions for his role in the founding of the PKK. Reviled by millions for the very same thing. His copious prison writings represent a world-historic re-articulation and redefinition of self-determination for the twenty-first century, to mean democratic confederalism, which includes an emphasis on direct democracy, multicultural accommodation, gender emancipation, and ecological sustainability. It is a vision which has heretofore been aligned with a vocal insistence in favour of the right to self-defence. Even the rose has its thorns, people in and around the movement like to say. Will the rose be able to blossom without its thorns? Öcalan is willing to gamble that it can. Let us hope he is right.