Behind Bahçeli’s olive branch to the PKK

Erdoğan treads lightly

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, referring to Bahçeli as his companion and alliance partner, described his call as a window of historic opportunity and asked all Kurds to seize the offer. The Turkish public, including the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), was surprised by Bahçeli's call, but so far, there has been no major negative reaction.

Erdoğan is treading carefully. He does not want to be seen as eager for this initiative, giving himself room to step back if the public turns against the idea, as it did when he tried to engage the PKK over a decade ago. It collapsed in 2015 due to public disgruntlement, not helped by the murder of two police officers in Ceylanpınar.

There followed a spate of fighting between the PKK and Turkish security forces, resulting in many dead and wounded. Ever since, Turkey has continued its military incursions into Syria and Iraq, targeting YPG and PKK. Erdoğan's government has suggested that the PKK is all but disbanded in Turkey.

This is partly true: many PKK cadres have moved to northeast Syria to man the YPG militias. Turkey considers the YPG to be the Syrian branch of the PKK and, therefore, a terrorist organisation, but several Western states, including the US, disagree about the YPG, which they see as an ally in combating Islamic State (IS).

Two days after Bahçeli's speech, with the Turkish public still digesting it, terrorists later identified as PKK members attacked the headquarters of a defence company in Ankara, killing five and wounding 20. The PKK did not claim responsibility for the attack, but the Turkish police identified the assailants as PKK members. In retaliation, Turkish warplanes intensified their bombing of YPG targets in Syria.

On 4 November came another bombshell: The Turkish government dismissed the mayor of Istanbul's Esenyurt district, Ahmet Özer. He was elected from the CHP but has close ties to the People's Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), the pro-Kurdish party, which replaced HDP after the last general elections.

Soon, the mayors of Mardin, Batman, and Halfeti in southeastern Turkey—all from the DEM Party—were also dismissed as a temporary measure in accordance with Article 127 of the Constitution and the Municipalities Law.

The Interior Ministry said they all had ties to terrorist organisations. The mayors were replaced by 'trustees'—bureaucrats serving as governors and district governors. The decree authorising the ministry to do so was enacted in 2016 following an attempted coup d'etat. Ever since, trustees have been appointed to 157 municipalities, the vast majority in the southeast, home to many of Turkey's Kurds.

In some cities, DEM supporters have protested, scuffling with police. Several were arrested. Likewise, DEM politicians have not attended parliamentary hearings. The Union of Turkish Bar Associations said the practice of appointing trustees had turned into a disproportionate intervention contrary to Turks' democratic rights.

Part of a plan

Taken together, these developments suggest that Bahçeli's call was neither random nor spontaneous but, in fact, coordinated with Erdoğan's ruling AK Party (AKP) and others who have been secretly talking to Öcalan for some time.

A mix of domestic and foreign policy considerations has compelled the ruling AKP-MHP coalition to make the offer, not least the heavy political defeat it suffered in the local elections in March 2024. Although the next presidential elections are not scheduled for 2028, AKP is lagging behind the CHP in the polls.

Erdoğan's main challenge is the economy. Inflation has come down, but it is still high, hovering around 48%, while the Turkish currency has lost value against the dollar. As a result, the majority of the Turkish people have become poorer. Politically, the AKP-MHP coalition is pushing the CHP to take a position on the DEM to discredit it and foment internal dissent. The CHP has two main factions: the Kemalist, nationalist, and Republican factions and the more leftist/liberal factions.

CHP leader Özgür Özel went to Mardin to stand alongside the dismissed mayor, Ahmet Türk, a doyen of Turkish politics. The government supporters were quick to jump on this, accusing Özel and CHP of "siding with terrorists". It is not clear that Erdoğan will run again as a presidential candidate.  The constitution allows someone to serve as president for two full terms only, so either this would need to be amended, or else an early election would need to be called. The latter would mean that he had not yet served two 'full' terms, meaning he could possibly run for a third.

To do either, Erdoğan needs enough parliamentarians to vote for it. As things stand, he does not quite have the numbers, so he seeks a new constituency—either the CHP or DEM. The latter is considered more realistic if given the right incentives. Coalition partner Bahçeli said another Erdoğan term was the only option if Turkey were to succeed in its objectives and has called for a constitutional amendment to allow it.

Foreign policy considerations

In terms of foreign policy, Turkey's relations with the US and the EU are still uneasy for a number of reasons, including differences in their approaches regarding major regional and global affairs. If the biggest armed Kurdish group were to disband and focus its fight in the political arena, analysts think this would be a huge win for Ankara, depriving Turkey's enemies of a possible proxy.

Turkey seeks to mend fences with its southern neighbours, notably President Bashar al-Assad in Syria but faces challenges in the north of the country. In the northeast, the US-supported YPG is building a state-like structure, while in the northwest, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib and other armed opposition groups roam.

Serious conflict remains a possibility. Around 3.2 million Syrian refugees now live in Turkey and show no signs of returning home (despite Turkish government claims to the contrary). Furthermore, US-Turkey relations have soured over the YPG, which occupies a third of Syrian territory, according to Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Erdoğan congratulated Donald Trump on his US presidential election victory, calling him a friend, but time will show whether the joy is justified. Bilateral relations during Trump's first term were rocky, and the returnee has made a point of defending Israel.

For Turkey, working with Russia is now an important foreign policy priority, not least over the Zangezur Corridor and in Syria, where both Ankara and Moscow have troops. On his return from the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Erdoğan told reporters that he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to urge al-Assad to respond positively to Turkey's call to normalise relations. Bahçeli's call, therefore, clearly fits into a larger pattern of changes.

There is no roadmap to disbanding the PKK, nor is there a clearly specified endgame. But what does appear clear is that this could be an important aspect of President Erdoğan's term of office until 2028 or earlier.