Between a Kurdish Mother’s Trill and Erdoğan’s Calculations: Is a New Horizon Emerging for Kurds in Syria?
That elderly Kurdish woman sitting in the second row didn’t seem to care about the dozens of journalists gathered in the conference hall of a hotel near Taksim Square in Istanbul. Nor did she pay much attention to the seven speakers seated on the stage, or the hundreds of others crowded into the unusually warm Thursday atmosphere on February 27, 2025. None of that mattered to her. She knew what she wanted. Her eyes were fixed on the giant screen behind the long row of speakers from the Equality and Democracy Party (DEM). She adjusted her posture, leaning left once, then right, as if sitting on hot coals.
The woman appeared to be in her seventies, wearing a sleeveless white woolen jacket and a white headscarf that covered her mouth. But when her enthusiasm overcame her restraint, she pushed it aside and let out a zaghrouda—a trill—perhaps out of season, maybe to celebrate the speaker who had just greeted the audience in Kurdish. She clapped before anyone else and stopped after everyone else, urging the speakers to press forward, to skip the interruptions and introductions, and reach the climactic moment she awaited with barely contained impatience.
This conservative Kurdish woman, dressed in her rural attire, likely didn’t understand politics. She probably didn’t grasp concepts like “strategy,” “realistic socialism,” “capitalism,” “extreme nationalism,” “federalism,” “self-governance,” or the “cultural solutions” that the leader Abdullah Öcalan spoke of in a letter read aloud in Turkish and Kurdish. Yet, she stood up and trilled—louder this time—when Öcalan’s image appeared on the giant screen.
Deep down, her instinct told her these were mere concepts, minor details compared to the reality of the leader who sat there in the center of the image, in flesh and blood, carrying a message he had written by hand. He looked straight into the camera lens without hesitation or ambiguity, after 26 years as a prisoner on the isolated İmralı Island, preceded by 20 years as a refugee in Syria fleeing arrest, and before that, 10 years earlier, when the idea of “Kurdistan” first took shape in his mind in 1969. This man had spent 56 of his 76 years chasing a dream he was now entirely abandoning, without conditions.
She clapped for a long time, as did many others in the press conference hall. Some were utterly stunned by the content of Öcalan’s letter, which they had just heard, but the woman waited,, until the final moments of the conference to express her gratitude to the DEM party representatives. She patted their shoulders, acknowledging their management of this complex process, originally launched by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), last October. Bahçeli now lay in a hospital, hovering between life and death.
For her, there was no distinction between “the cause” and “the leader”—they were one and the same. But other supporters struggled to comprehend what had happened: Had Öcalan truly abandoned “the Kurds and Kurdistan”? What had he agreed to in this reconciliation process? Had everything been for naught? More than 50,000 dead, roughly $450 billion in expenses, and about 14% losses in Turkey’s GDP—some couldn’t reconcile the enormity of the losses with the ambiguity of the gains. They turned to conspiracy theories: the leader’s message was coded, decipherable only by the elite decision-makers. Others argued he “meant the opposite of what he said”—that “laying down arms” meant clinging to them, and “stopping the fight” meant pressing forward.
But Öcalan’s message contained no codes and didn’t imply the opposite of what it stated. It simply called for peace based on “Kurdish-Turkish brotherhood,” harking back to when the Marwanid Kurds decisively fought alongside the Seljuk Turkish commander Alp Arslan to defeat the Byzantines and open the gates of Anatolia at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. One outcome of that alliance was Ahmad Sanjar (1086–1118), Alp Arslan’s grandson, declaring the establishment of a “Kurdistan” province. Yet, in his letter, Öcalan rejected the idea of a Kurdish nation-state, a federal Kurdistan region, self-governance, or “cultural solutions.” He argued that the world had moved beyond such proposals and that the solution lay in building “democratic societies,” with Kurds and Turks struggling together to achieve it. In this context, it’s worth noting the map by the Turkish scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari from 1072, which marks “the land of the Kurds” in the same geographic location where Kurds live today.
The woman likely didn’t care to understand what “democratic societies” meant. For her, “Kurdistan” was as clear as the sun in the sky: present in her stance, her applause, her attire, her trills, her fervor; present in her decision to endure the hardship of attending a press conference; present in the coals she sat upon, in her wide smile as she finally saw the leader on the screen after a long wait; present in her pats on the shoulders—reassuring, affirming, certain that she was “Kurdish,” and that “Kurdistan” lived in her heart before it was a entity with geographic borders.
But other Kurds wept that day. The event was too much for them to bear. The grand idea of “Kurdistan” they thought they’d imbibed with their mothers’ milk seemed farther from realization than ever—since the poet Ahmad Khani called for it in his famous poem four centuries ago, and after over a hundred years of their identity being erased, labeled “mountain Turks” under the Turkish nationalist narrative, or “Bouyjiya” [offending phrase in the Syrian accent meaning “shoe polishers”] under the Syrian Arab nationalist one. Both narratives failed, and the Kurds endured, growing stronger through their civil political movement.
The Kurds weren’t the only ones who cried. Four months earlier, Turks had wept too, when the hardline nationalist Devlet Bahçeli, in a long speech from the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on October 22, 2024, called on Abdullah Öcalan to dissolve the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and lay down arms in exchange for a conditional pardon, advocating for a broad peace and reconciliation process in the country. Nationalists wept then too, for his speech was historic, crossing red lines they were accustomed to. It might bridge the divide between Turkish and Kurdish societies and lead to a sweeping shift in Turkey’s electoral blocs.
But why had Bahçeli launched this initiative?
Months before Assad’s fall, it was evident that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ally Bahçeli were increasingly wary of the fallout from Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the chaos they could unleash in the Middle East. This was especially true as Kurds began preparing to capitalize on the vacuum left by Iran’s waning influence in Syria and Hezbollah’s collapse under successive Israeli strikes. In his parliamentary speech, Bahçeli—for the first time—praised the diversity of the Ottoman Empire, despite Turkish nationalists historically refusing to acknowledge it. Among nationalists, it was whispered that Bahçeli took this step in response to shifting power dynamics due to the Israeli war, to preempt any scenario where Turkey might lose influence in Syria—or, in a worst-case scenario, lose Turkish territory.
But the matter seems more complex. When Bahçeli made his call in October, he didn’t anticipate Assad’s fall at the precise moment it occurred. Yet, necessity drove him to propose the peace process in Turkey to avert a potential “strategic disaster” in Syria. Bahçeli, and Erdoğan behind him, saw that Turkey needed to convince the increasingly bold Kurds—especially in Syria—that their best option was an alliance with the Turks.
The Initiative Shrouded in Ambiguity
Since that day, we’ve continued to debate the implications of Bahçeli’s speech and track the subsequent steps, shrouded in much ambiguity due to the Turkish authorities’ lack of transparency. Key questions persist even after Öcalan’s letter: Has the peace process truly begun? Have the next steps been negotiated? What are those steps? If the peace process has started, why does it seem like Bahçeli is its sole architect and driver, despite being on his deathbed? Why does Erdoğan, when addressing the process, keep his remarks brief, using vague, neutral phrases? Why doesn’t he show any public commitment to it? Why does Turkey speak of a breakthrough with “the Kurds” while simultaneously pressuring them—isolating Kurdish politicians from local administrations and militarily pressuring the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)? Most importantly: Is this truly the start of a historic resolution?
Thus, while analyses link the peace process to developments in Syria, the sequence of steps initiating this opening doesn’t fully align with that narrative. Insisting on this connection might obscure the more pragmatic and vital motives driving Erdoğan.
Erdoğan’s goals or expectations from this process can be summarized in three points:
First Goal: Erdoğan needs a decision for early elections to enable him to run for president again. Having been elected three times, he’s constitutionally barred from a fourth term in 2028 unless through a constitutional amendment or early elections. Early elections seem the easier first step, but the current parliamentary balance doesn’t allow his Justice and Development Party (AKP) to pass such a decision. If DEM party deputies cooperate, Erdoğan’s dilemma could be resolved. This goal appears agreed upon unless the peace process collapses.
Second Goal: Erdoğan fears the Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate who will challenge him in the presidential race. Potential candidates include Ekrem İmamoğlu (CHP), Istanbul’s mayor; Mansur Yavaş (CHP with nationalist leanings), Ankara’s mayor; Özgür Özel, CHP leader; and Ümit Özdağ, leader of the far-right Victory Party, recently arrested for inciting hatred. Erdoğan seeks to fragment the opposition as much as possible, pushing it into internal conflict. He hopes to imprison İmamoğlu, paving the way for the remaining three to compete and split votes. If Bahçeli dies, Erdoğan might convince Yavaş to join the nationalists and lead the MHP. He’d also push the DEM to field a strong Kurdish candidate, at least in the initial nomination phase, to ethnically divide voter support. If he advances the peace process, many Kurdish votes could ultimately go to him.
Third Goal: Erdoğan aims to pressure the DEM to support a constitutional amendment allowing a president to be elected indefinitely without the 50% threshold. Though unlikely, if the DEM agrees, Turkey could resemble Russia’s governance model, and the Kurds would bear that stigma for years.
If so, why does Erdoğan seem hesitant about the process? It’s clear he meticulously planned this, drawing on lessons from the 2013–2015 peace process. The first lesson: success with the Kurds is impossible if faced with cohesive Turkish nationalist opposition. Though nationalist parties hold 20% of the vote, their rhetoric can mobilize beyond their electoral weight. Erdoğan learned he must dismantle the nationalist front to succeed.
The second lesson: the government’s negotiation approach. From 2013–2015, he realized overt government involvement backfires and risks failure. Notably, the MHP, a key reason for the earlier process’s collapse, is now a major supporter of the new one—though it’s unclear how Erdoğan convinced Bahçeli to kick it off.
Erdoğan takes extraordinary care to neither appear engaged in nor opposed to the process. In this new peace effort, he employs a precise tactic: seeming unready for reconciliation while continuing negotiations—using a “carrot-and-stick” approach with the DEM, giving him the upper hand. This will ultimately divide the Kurds: some will accept talks, others reject them. This benefits Erdoğan, allowing him to tell his nationalist base: “Look at the Kurds refusing to negotiate.” His “tough softness” strategy, alternating roles with Bahçeli, confuses both opposition and supporters, who grapple with the government’s contradictory behavior—negotiating yet repressing. This also disorients the CHP, unable to take a clear stance: supporting the process risks accusations of collaborating with the PKK and dividing the state; caution risks charges of obstructing peace. Backing it loses hardline nationalist and moderate right-wing votes; opposing it loses some Kurdish votes. The more the CHP flounders, the stronger the perception it’s unfit to govern.
Erdoğan wins either way. If the PKK disbands smoothly, he’ll claim credit for ending a 40-year insurgency, facing a weakened opposition in the next election. If it falters, he’ll appear strong by cracking down on the opposition and targeting Kurdish forces in Syria.
He’s deliberately avoided a direct role, leaving the stage to Bahçeli, separating his political future from the talks’ outcome. If this holds, the “Kurdish opening” isn’t just a political maneuver but a broader state-led initiative. AKP deputy chairman Efkan Ala indirectly hinted at this, saying, “The essence of [Öcalan’s] call is for the organization to lay down arms and dissolve, but we’re also looking at what comes next.” It’s not just about disarmament but whether it’s achievable—a broader effort is needed for success.
Why Would the PKK Lay Down Arms?
Founded in November 1978, the PKK began shifting operations outside Turkey in early 1979, moving to Syria to exploit regional conditions, establishing a base beyond Turkish pressure. Born in Turkey, it grew and matured in Syria. Erdoğan and Bahçeli know this.
When the Assad regime withdrew from northeast Syria early in the civil war, locals of various backgrounds, led by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), established a quasi-state with military, administrative, and judicial structures. For the first time, the SDF and SDC governed autonomously, consolidating control and legitimacy through self-administration institutions. Fighting ISIS cemented their role as a major regional actor, securing international military—and often political—support. The SDF quickly grasped the strategic advantages of state-building, diplomacy, and alliances. After 30 years of armed struggle and thousands of deaths, the PKK, a legitimate offspring of this region, sees northeast Syria’s future as worth dissolving itself for, fully paving the way for the SDF as a Syrian-oriented entity—a strategically sound move.
The Kurdish issue has always had a geopolitical dimension. The more states controlling Kurdistan suppressed the Kurds, the more they adapted. Their national cause evolved from political and cultural representation to regional security. No longer confined to identity and minority rights, it’s now a regional matter shaping—and shaped by—the Middle East’s broader power dynamics.
Yet, northeast Syria’s future remains unclear. The SDF still faces daily attacks from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Ankara won’t ease this pressure unless the “peace process” with the PKK succeeds. Only then might Turkey soften its stance toward the SDF, reassessing fears that Syrian Kurdish governance threatens its national security. For Turkey to shift, the SDF and SDC must clearly separate from the PKK, with the latter dissolving and offering guarantees that current borders won’t change. Including or excluding Kurds in Syria’s governance is pivotal to regional power balances, especially affecting Turkey’s dynamics with the U.S., Israel, and Arab states wary of Ankara’s expanding influence. Without Kurdish political integration, Syria won’t see long-term stability.
Erdoğan knows the “Kurdish issue” in Turkey is no longer about cultural rights or representation but strategic positioning and regional security. Turkish researcher Arzu Yılmaz notes the current peace process isn’t “a traditional initiative to address historical grievances; it’s about building alliances, where regional alignments and power balances dictate engagement.”
In this context, Öcalan’s message makes sense. His vision seeks to lift the “Kurdish issue” from its narrow national frame into one of building a “democratic society.” This was clear in a letter, addressed by Selahattin Demirtaş to Kurds and Turks alike:
Don’t fear peace or reconciliation, my brother. Don’t fear Turks and Kurds uniting to make Turkey stronger. Don’t fear supporting any step that brings peace to the region. Don’t fear, so we can silence the guns this time and let politics speak. Through political struggle, let’s overcome poverty, unemployment, hunger, injustice, and inequality together. Let’s redirect the billions spent on war to the people directly. And let’s not forget: peace also means bread, work, and livelihood.
Erdoğan isn’t a democrat unless it curbs his opponents, nor a nationalist unless it wins votes. Islamists believe in neither democracy nor nationalism. Yet, if the PKK disarms, he’d have to release thousands of Kurdish politicians from prison and allow their political participation—provided it doesn’t aid his rivals or contradict his agenda. Demirtaş knows this, urging patience and persistence in his letter’s tone. Peace and a democratic society don’t come all at once, and he recognizes the long, arduous path to convincing Turks that Kurds are an asset, not a threat. He aims to shift the peace process from violence-centric to politics- and law-centric.
Syrian Kurds will also face this grueling journey, persuading others they’re an asset, not a threat—that a peaceful, prosperous region, state, or entity can be built, where diverse identities enrich rather than impoverish. Whether Bahçeli and Öcalan’s “peace process” succeeds or fails, one thing is certain: the “Kurdish issue” is no longer just national aspirations but a decisive factor in building a reconciled, prosperous society.
The rural Kurdish woman at the press conference knew instinctively—shaped by centuries of struggle—that the message’s content wasn’t the point. The meaning lay in the bigger, grander picture.