The Kurds are a stateless people of up to 45 million living in the Kurdistan mountains of west Asia, spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and northern Syria. Their geographical spread across these four states, in each of which they are cultural and linguistic minorities, has given them a turbulent history and conflictual politics.
They have now reached another turning point.
Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) has called on his 5,000 guerrilla followers to lay down arms after talks with the Turkish government.
The negotiations concerned cultural, civil and economic rights, release of thousands of Kurdish political prisoners and a prospective opening up of political opportunity for the 17 million Turkish Kurds in Turkey, one fifth of its population. Erdogan has fought a ferocious war against the PKK for the last decade and repressed its political allies.
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This Turkish initiative was followed last week by another from the new Syrian regime led by interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa. He signed an agreement on mutual recognition and political integration with the Kurds who control much of the state’s territory in northern Syria.
It was greeted rapturously by his supporters and many others in Damascus. This came only days after bloody fighting and atrocities between the new regime’s army and Alawite minority forces who supported a coup attempt by supporters of the previous repressive Assad regime, in which upwards of 1,300 people died.
Two days later, a similar agreement, with the Syrian Druze minority confirms Al-Sharaa’s declared intentions to make Syria more inclusive, despite his own movement’s background in Islamic fundamentalism.
In Turkey, it makes sense for Erdogan to take this initiative as he hopes to secure Kurdish support for extending his presidential term and because geopolitical shifts in the region gives him an opportunity to do it to Turkey’s advantage. Kurds predominantly support Turkey’s third largest party, which could have a pivotal role in its politics if the PKK follows Ocalan’s call to disarm.
Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have been weakened by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and by Israel’s military successes. Erdogan sees a major regional political and economic role for Turkey in Syria and Iraq that would be made easier by peace with the Kurds, who have little option but to go with it considering their relative weakness. Whether the autocratic Erdogan can give them proper guarantees about their future is their huge dilemma.
Al-Sharaa’s initiatives in Syria are equally daring. A move to ease international sanctions may be appropriate, though Europe and others will warn that this is contingent on an end to violence.
