Ankara is turning the PKK’s farewell to arms into legislation—but the real question is whether Turkey can transform disarmament into a lasting political settlement for its Kurds.
By Dr. Pshtiwan Faraj | Kurdish Policy Analysis Turkey's PKK peace process enters a decisive phase as Ankara legislates disarmament, reintegration and political normalization—with major implications for Kurds, Iraq and Syria.
For more than four decades, Turkey's Kurdish conflict was defined by an assumption that appeared almost impossible to challenge: the state would pursue security through military pressure, while the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) would continue armed resistance.
That equation is now changing.
The PKK has declared its intention to end its armed struggle and dissolve the organization. Weapons have been symbolically destroyed. Fighters have begun withdrawing from positions in Turkey. Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned founder and ideological leader of the PKK, has called for a transition toward a democratic political process.
And now Ankara is attempting to give that transformation a legal framework.
The Turkish parliament is considering a 12-article bill formally titled the Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration, designed to establish procedures for PKK disarmament, surrender, legal treatment and the return of eligible members. The proposal was submitted with the signatures of 360 lawmakers, while a parliamentary monitoring mechanism and a government-led oversight structure are being established to supervise implementation.
This is potentially historic.
But it is also extraordinarily fragile.
Because ending a war is not the same thing as resolving the political conflict that produced it.
From Battlefield to Parliament
The most important change in the Turkey-PKK conflict is that the battlefield is increasingly being replaced by legislation.
That alone represents a profound transformation.
According to The Wire, negotiations between Öcalan and Turkish officials have been developing since late 2024, following an initiative associated with Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahçeli and the Turkish government. Öcalan subsequently called on the PKK to dissolve and abandon armed struggle, after which the organization announced a ceasefire, held its congress and declared its willingness to disband.
The symbolic weapons-burning ceremony in the Kurdistan Region in July 2025 became one of the most visible moments of the process.
Now the Turkish state is attempting to institutionalize what began as a political declaration.
The draft legislation would create mechanisms for determining who qualifies for legal protections, how disarmament is verified and how eligible former PKK members can return to civilian life.
According to the Associated Press, the proposed framework could provide an effective pardon for around 4,000 members who were not directly involved in violent crimes and could facilitate the return of former fighters from Iraq, Syria and exile. Individuals convicted of intentional homicide or certain serious offenses would remain excluded.
That distinction is crucial.
An amnesty without conditions would be politically difficult for Ankara.
A process without meaningful reintegration, however, could leave former combatants in legal limbo.
The Turkish government is therefore attempting to walk a narrow line between security, justice and political reintegration.
The PKK Has Already Made the Bigger Gamble
From the Kurdish side, the strategic gamble may be even greater.
The PKK is effectively exchanging its armed capacity for the promise of political participation.
That is an enormous concession.
The question is what it receives in return.
The Wire presents the process as the beginning of a much broader political transformation, arguing that the draft legislation could create a foundation for further reforms involving democratic participation, local governance and Kurdish cultural and linguistic rights.
But Turkish Minute's recent analysis raises the opposite question: whether the PKK's farewell to arms should be interpreted as a genuine peace transformation or as a strategic political maneuver whose ultimate consequences remain uncertain. Turkish Minute’s analysis of the PKK’s farewell to arms
That debate matters.
The PKK is not simply putting down weapons.
It is dismantling the instrument through which it has historically exercised political leverage.
If Turkey responds with meaningful political reform, the disarmament could become the foundation of a historic settlement.
If Ankara treats disarmament as the end of the process rather than the beginning of it, Kurdish political frustration could eventually return in a different form.
Ankara’s Most Important Test Is What Comes After Disarmament
The Turkish government has made clear that it wants the disarmament process to be verified by state institutions.
Kurdistan24 reports that the National Security Council is now playing a central role in monitoring and verifying the PKK's disarmament, while the proposed legislation establishes an oversight structure involving senior government and security officials alongside a 17-member parliamentary monitoring commission.
This architecture tells us something important about Ankara's priorities.
Turkey wants the process to remain fundamentally state-controlled.
That is understandable from a security perspective.
But peace processes rarely succeed through security mechanisms alone.
The political dimension is equally important.
Former combatants need a pathway into civilian life.
Kurdish politicians need meaningful political space.
Local governments need protection from arbitrary intervention.
Cultural and linguistic rights need durable legal guarantees.
And Kurdish voters need confidence that political participation will not simply become another temporary phase before repression returns.
The success of the process will therefore depend on whether Turkey can move from disarmament management to political normalization.
Erdoğan’s Political Future Is Entangled With the Peace Process
One of the most consequential dimensions of the process is not military at all.
It is political.
Al-Monitor argues that the new legislation has become intertwined with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ambitions to remain in power beyond the constitutional limit. The ruling AK Party and its MHP ally hold 323 seats, while 360 votes are needed to trigger a constitutional referendum under the relevant provisions. The pro-Kurdish DEM Party holds 56 seats, making it potentially decisive in parliamentary calculations.
That creates an extraordinary political bargain.
Erdoğan needs parliamentary support for his broader political ambitions.
The Kurdish political movement wants legal and constitutional reforms.
The government wants the PKK disarmed.
The DEM Party wants a credible political settlement.
Each side therefore possesses something the others need.
That does not automatically make the process illegitimate.
Peace processes are almost always political.
But it does create a dangerous perception problem.
If Kurdish voters conclude that their historic grievances are being used primarily as an instrument in Erdoğan's political survival strategy, trust could collapse.
The government therefore needs to demonstrate that the process is bigger than one president.
A durable peace agreement must survive Erdoğan.
The Law Is Important—But It Does Not Solve the Kurdish Question
The proposed law should not be mistaken for a final peace agreement.
Even its supporters acknowledge that it is a framework rather than a complete settlement.
Al-Monitor notes that the legislation does not resolve several of the most sensitive questions, including the status of Öcalan, the fate of senior PKK figures based in the Qandil Mountains and the situation of prominent Kurdish political prisoners.
The Associated Press similarly reports that Öcalan himself is excluded from the amnesty provisions because of the seriousness of his conviction, although his prison conditions and ability to communicate could potentially be expanded.
This creates an immediate paradox.
Öcalan is central to the process.
Yet the legislation does not provide the political settlement that would fully normalize his status.
That unresolved issue could become one of the next major tests.
The Kurdish Political Question Is Bigger Than the PKK
This is perhaps the most important distinction in the entire process.
The PKK is one actor in the Kurdish political landscape.
It is not identical to the Kurdish population of Turkey.
Millions of Kurdish citizens are not PKK members.
Many participate in elections.
Others support different political parties.
Some are nationalists.
Others are social democrats, conservatives, liberals or religiously oriented.
Some want greater cultural rights.
Others prioritize economic development and local governance.
Therefore, even a successful PKK disarmament cannot by itself resolve what Turkey calls the "Kurdish question."
A lasting settlement must eventually move beyond the organization itself.
It must address the broader political relationship between the Turkish state and its Kurdish citizens.
That means equal citizenship, political representation, language and cultural rights, local democracy and the rule of law.
Otherwise, Ankara could successfully end the PKK conflict while leaving the underlying political dispute unresolved.
The Shadow of 2015
The biggest psychological obstacle to the current process is the memory of failure.
Turkey has attempted peace negotiations before.
The most recent major process collapsed in 2015, after which violence returned with devastating consequences.
Al-Monitor notes that earlier attempts in 2008 and 2012 also failed and that the conflict subsequently resumed.
That history explains the caution surrounding today's negotiations.
Neither side wants to make irreversible concessions only to discover that the other side has changed strategy.
The Turkish state fears that disarmament could be exploited to rebuild political or military capacity.
Kurdish actors fear that disarmament could be followed by renewed repression once the security threat disappears.
This is the classic dilemma of peace processes:
Each side wants guarantees before giving the other side what it wants.
But peace requires somebody to move first.
The current process has attempted to solve that problem through sequencing.
The PKK moves first on weapons.
The state responds through legislation.
Parliament creates legal mechanisms.
The security establishment verifies implementation.
Then further political reforms can follow.
The danger is that the process becomes stuck between stages.
The Kurdistan Region Has Become Part of the Peace Architecture
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a unique role in the process.
The PKK's symbolic weapons-burning ceremony took place near Sulaymaniyah in July 2025, and many of the organization's fighters and senior cadres have historically operated from mountainous areas of northern Iraq. Al-Monitor notes that several members could eventually return to Turkey under the new framework.
This gives Erbil and Baghdad a significant interest in the outcome.
A successful peace process could reduce Turkish military pressure in northern Iraq.
It could also reduce the security burden associated with the PKK's presence in the Kurdistan Region.
For Baghdad, this could strengthen the state's control over northern territory.
For the Kurdistan Regional Government, it could reduce one of the most complicated security issues affecting its relationship with Ankara.
For Türkiye, it could create a pathway toward a less militarized border.
The consequences therefore extend far beyond southeastern Turkey.
Iraq Could Be One of the Biggest Beneficiaries
The economic implications are particularly significant.
The Associated Press reports that progress in the Turkey-PKK process is already affecting Turkey-Iraq relations, including oil and trade cooperation. The recent normalization of the northern energy corridor creates an additional incentive for Ankara and Baghdad to preserve stability along the border.
That matters enormously for Iraq.
The Kirkuk-Ceyhan corridor is strategically important to Iraq's export diversification.
The safer and more predictable the Turkish-Iraqi border becomes, the easier it becomes to develop trade, transportation and energy infrastructure.
This is where the peace process begins to intersect directly with the economic interests of the Kurdistan Region.
A reduction in armed conflict could mean:
fewer military operations in northern Iraq;
greater security for energy infrastructure;
more predictable cross-border trade;
improved investment conditions;
stronger Turkey-Iraq economic relations;
and potentially greater movement of goods and people.
Peace could therefore become an economic asset.
Syria Is the Other Major Piece of the Puzzle
The process also has consequences for Syria.
The PKK's relationship with the Syrian Democratic Forces has long been one of Ankara's central security concerns.
Al-Monitor reports that one of the objectives of the negotiations was to use Öcalan's influence to support the integration of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces into the Syrian state.
The Associated Press likewise reports that Turkish officials and analysts see progress in the peace process as potentially facilitating the integration of Kurdish-held areas into Syria's emerging political order.
This could become one of the most consequential regional effects of the Turkey-PKK process.
If Ankara believes that the Kurdish armed movement is genuinely transitioning away from armed struggle, its security calculations toward Kurdish forces in Syria could change.
But that outcome is far from guaranteed.
The Syrian Kurdish issue has its own political, military and territorial dynamics.
A Turkish-PKK agreement cannot simply be imposed on Syria.
Nevertheless, the two processes are increasingly interconnected.
Is This Peace—or Strategic Repositioning?
This is where the argument becomes more complicated.
Supporters see the process as a historic opportunity to end a war that has killed tens of thousands and consumed enormous resources.
Critics question whether the PKK is genuinely dissolving or simply transforming itself into a political movement.
Others question whether Ankara is genuinely preparing for democratic reform or simply using disarmament to neutralize a longstanding security threat.
The answer may ultimately be: both sides are pursuing peace while also pursuing their strategic interests.
There is nothing unusual about that.
Governments rarely enter peace negotiations without strategic calculations.
Armed movements rarely surrender leverage without expecting political gains.
The real measure of the process is therefore not whether either side has political motives.
It is whether those motives can be converted into a sustainable settlement.
The Jerusalem Post’s Warning About Öcalan’s Ideological Shift
The ideological dimension should also not be ignored.
A recent Jerusalem Post analysis argues that Öcalan's ideological evolution and recent rhetoric, particularly regarding Israel, could complicate the Kurdish movement's international relationships. The article also questions whether his decision to dissolve the PKK reflects genuine strategic transformation, pressure from Ankara or a broader political calculation.
Those arguments should be understood as the authors' interpretation rather than established fact.
But they highlight an important issue.
The PKK's ideological transformation is not simply about whether weapons disappear.
It is also about what political identity replaces the armed movement.
For decades, the organization was defined by revolutionary ideology, armed struggle and opposition to the Turkish state.
A post-PKK movement would require a different political language.
It would have to compete through elections, civil society, local government and democratic institutions.
That transformation could prove much more difficult than disarmament itself.
The Real Test Will Be the First Returnees
One of the most important future tests will be what happens when former PKK members actually return to Turkey.
This is where rhetoric will meet reality.
Will they be detained?
Will they receive legal protection?
Will they be allowed to participate in politics?
Will they be monitored indefinitely?
Will local communities accept them?
Will Turkish nationalists accept the arrangement?
Will Kurdish voters regard the process as credible?
Al-Monitor identifies the treatment of the first returning group as a crucial indicator of Ankara's sincerity.
If the first returnees are handled successfully, confidence could increase dramatically.
If they are arrested, excluded or publicly humiliated, the process could suffer a devastating loss of credibility.
The same applies to Kurdish politicians and political prisoners.
Peace needs visible evidence.
The Security Establishment Could Become the Gatekeeper
The Turkish National Security Council's role is another reason to watch the next phase carefully.
Kurdistan24 reports that the council is expected to verify disarmament and coordinate security assessments, while the proposed law establishes formal mechanisms for monitoring surrender and weapons destruction.
This creates a potential tension.
The peace process needs political confidence.
The security establishment is designed around risk prevention.
If every stage of the process is evaluated primarily through a counterterrorism lens, political normalization could become extremely slow.
But if security concerns are ignored, Turkish nationalists could mobilize against the process.
Ankara therefore needs a dual-track mechanism:
security verification + political reform.
One without the other will probably fail.
The Biggest Opportunity in a Generation
Despite all the risks, it would be a mistake to underestimate the scale of what is happening.
The PKK has moved from armed insurgency toward declared dissolution.
Turkey's government has moved from military policy toward legislation.
The Turkish parliament is debating a framework for reintegration.
Kurdish political actors are participating in the process.
Iraq could benefit from reduced cross-border conflict.
Syria could potentially benefit from a broader Kurdish integration framework.
And Türkiye could redirect enormous political, military and economic resources toward other priorities.
The potential economic dividend is especially significant.
As The Wire notes, Erdoğan has described the conflict as having imposed enormous costs on Turkey, while broader analyses of the process emphasize the burden created by decades of conflict.
If even part of those resources can be redirected toward infrastructure, investment and regional economic integration, the peace process could become an economic transformation as well as a security settlement.
But Peace Cannot Be Built on Disarmament Alone
The fundamental danger is simple.
Turkey could successfully eliminate the PKK as an armed organization without resolving the Kurdish political question.
That would create a temporary security victory, not necessarily a durable peace.
The real endpoint should be much more ambitious.
It should be a Turkey in which Kurdish political identity does not automatically become a security issue.
A Turkey in which Kurdish citizens can participate in politics without fear of collective punishment.
A Turkey in which cultural and linguistic rights are protected through law.
A Turkey in which local democracy is strong enough to survive political disagreements.
And a Turkey in which former combatants can become ordinary citizens rather than permanent security suspects.
That would constitute a genuine peace.
The Next Phase Will Decide Everything
The Turkey-PKK process has now crossed a threshold that previous attempts never successfully passed.
The PKK's disarmament has moved from political declaration toward an institutional process.
The Turkish parliament has entered the picture.
The National Security Council is monitoring the security dimension.
The Kurdish political movement is seeking legislative guarantees.
And Erdoğan's government has powerful political incentives to keep the process alive.
But the hardest stage is only beginning.
The question is no longer:
Will the PKK put down its weapons?
The more important question is:
What will Turkey build after the weapons are gone?
If Ankara responds with genuine political reform, the current process could become one of the most important transformations in modern Turkish history.
If disarmament is treated as the destination rather than the first step, the old cycle of mistrust could eventually return.
For the Kurdistan Region, Iraq and Syria, the stakes are equally high.
A successful settlement could reduce military pressure, strengthen trade and energy corridors, and create a more stable northern Middle East.
A failed process could produce the opposite: renewed militarization, political radicalization and another generation of conflict.
The opportunity is therefore enormous.
But so is the danger.
Turkey has reached the moment when the PKK's weapons may disappear. The real test is whether the political conflict that made those weapons possible disappears with them.
Source References
Author profile:
Dr. Pshtiwan Faraj is a political and geopolitical analyst, university lecturer, and founder of Kurdish Policy Analysis. His research focuses on Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, energy security, regional geopolitics and conflict.
#Turkey #PKK #Kurds #Kurdistan #PeaceProcess
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