The PKK at the crossroads: yield or total war

The appeal launched yesterday by the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who asked to lay down the weapons to the separatist organization PKK he founded himself, could represent a historical turning point and the end of a conflict that lasted 40 years and cost the lives of about 50 thousand people.

The appeal of the Kurdish leader actually puts both the PKK and the entire region in front of a crossroads: peace or years of war. After spending 26 years in a maximum security prison, the question is if Ocalan has kept the authority to decree the melting of the group and if this follows it or choose the war with Turkey. A war that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has no intention of losing, especially in front of a country to which he continues to promise “a Türkiye without terror”.

To weigh on the future there is on the one hand the authority of Ocalan, on the other also the situation of the PKK, changed a lot in recent years. The organization has been reduced to the minimum terms. In Turkey, the last attack, isolated, dates back to November 2022, but the group’s operations in the South East by Kurdish majority of the country were almost zero after the violent operations wanted by Erdogan in 2016. In the same way, the perception of the PKK has changed with a large part of the Kurdish population that is no longer recognized in the guerrilla war. Erdogan’s choice to fight this war only with the special forces has made it possible to obtain results and stem the PKK until it pushed it out of the border. The group sanctuaries are sales on the indomitable mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. An harsh territory, where the ankara army continued to launch attacks without continuity, but without coming to it.

The PKK is close, continuous targets of the Turkish drones, but the conflict goes on. If the Ocalan appeal falls on the void, the Turkish operations are intended to intensify the entire area and the PKK could hardly counterattack. Erdogan also has the full support of the other Kurdish leader, Barzani, whose family governs Iraqi Kurdistan and has always considered the pkk an enemy. In recent months, the Baghdad government has also guaranteed support for Ankara against the PKK with a collaboration protocol.

Different and perhaps even more uncertain situation concerns YPG Kurdish separatists in the North East of Syria. Erdogan’s Akp party has today specified that Ocalan’s appeal must also concern YPG. A rib of the PKK, born under a different theme so as not to end up in the list of terrorist organizations, but which with Ocalan in prison and with the support of the USA has taken a different path. YPG has obtained recognition over the years of the fight against ISIS, manages the provinces of the North East Syrian, controls some cities, the detention camps of the Families of ISIS and the prisons of the Caliphate.

The Kurdish leader asked to lay down the weapons of “all armed groups”, but at the moment the reaction from the North East of Syria has been cold. In past years, the Turkish army has launched two different operations and stolen territory from Ypg. A few days’ incursions that saw the Turks advance without major problems. The North of Syria, unlike the harsh mountains of North Iraq, is in fact hilly and bare, unsuitable for hands by the guerrilla war.

The US braked the advance of Ankara, but President Donald Trump does not seem inclined to guarantee YPG the support of his predecessors. It is no coincidence that the two Turkish military operations against YPG were launched in 2018 and 2019, both during Trump’s first term. With the fall of the Damascus regime Ankara has become a central actor in Syria; The Kurdish separatists ended up under attack by the Syrian militias supported by Türkiye (Syrian free army, Els) and were politically marginalized. The president of the transitional government Ahmed to the Sharaa, asked for the return of the territories of the North East and offered to YPG to enter the Syrian army.

Also in this case the reaction was cold and Ypg was excluded from the Syrian constituent table ending isolated. If in Syria the Avocalan appeal is unheeded, it is very likely that Ypg is in the crossfire of Turkish troops, the Syrian militiamen of Els, but also of the new Damascus army that is being born right with the collaboration of Ankara. Erdogan does not want Ypg to his borders, at Sharaa he does not seem intent on contradicting him and for YPG there may be no escape.