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The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party announced late Tuesday that it had ended its unilateral ceasefire declared in the wake of twin earthquakes in February. The move signals a hardening of the militants’ stand, with potential repercussions for the Kurdish political movement inside Turkey and the presence of US troops in Syria.
The group, better known by its initials PKK, cited Turkey’s escalating attacks against its militants in Syria and in Iraq and the continued isolation of its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, as the main reasons for scotching the truce.
In truth, the PKK had been banking on an opposition win in the watershed parliamentary and presidential elections. Though presented as a humane gesture, the truce was aimed in part to ease the electoral alliance between a bloc of six opposition parties led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who was defeated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan, in turn, used the PKK’s calls for the Kurdish people to support his rival as proof that Kilicdaroglu was in bed with “terrorists.”
The PKK was hoping that an opposition victory would eventually lead to resumption of direct peace talks with the Turkish state. Talks were initiated by Erdogan in 2009 but collapsed in 2015 over the refusal, among other things, of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) to support the current executive presidential system that grants Erdogan full power.
The most immediate question is what practical effect the end of the latest truce will have. The commonly held view is that, in military terms, not much. Ilhami Isik, a Kurdish commentator who advised the government on the peace talks, said, “The PKK has largely lost its offensive capacity, particularly inside Turkey.” But the militants could conceivably resort to urban terror, targeting Turkey’s multi-billion-dollar tourism industry, he added.
Yasar Ciya, a PKK commander, hinted as much on June 5 in comments to the pro-PKK news outlet Firat News. “Every Kurdish youth can treat them in Turkish cities as they treat Kurdistan,” he said. “Should the enemy insist on pursuing this war in 2023, we should turn all of Turkey into hell."
Starting in 2016, Turkey dramatically escalated its war against the PKK, occupying territory held by their People’s Protection Units (YPG) allies in northern Syria and systematically killing numerous mid-level and several senior officials in drone strikes both in Syria and Iraq. However, civilians linked to the movement are being targeted as well. Huseyin Arasan, a Turkish national and Kurdish activist who sought refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, was shot dead in the city of Sulaiymaniyah on Friday.
Turkey’s Ministry of Defense announced today that it had detected and destroyed “terror nests” in Syria’s Manbij and Tell Rifaat which are notionally protected by Russia and the Syrian regime. However, the YPG and its political arm effectively control both places, which are home to mixed Kurdish and Arab populations. The ministry said 53 militants had been killed in the operations. The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led force that is the United States’ top ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, denied the claim.
The United States had long been pressing SDF commander Mazlum Kobane, who held senior positions inside the PKK, to press the militants to declare a ceasefire, in a bid to defuse tensions with Turkey. Relations between the United States and Turkey have sharply deteriorated over the Pentagon’s partnership with the SDF and its YPG core. Ankara is particularly incensed at Washington’s refusal to acknowledge the SDF’s links to the PKK, which is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
In private, US officials acknowledge the ties and agree that any PKK actions causing civilian deaths in Turkey would make the US-SDF alliance harder to defend. Biden Administration officials are adamant that an estimated 900 US Special Forces will remain in northeast Syria at least till the end of its current term. If US forces were to leave, the Syrian Kurdish enclave would likely collapse.
Charles Lister, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria program, believes that the PKK could also train its guns on northern Aleppo, “returning to urban bombing campaigns like we’ve seen in recent years.” Lister continued, “That would be the PKK’s way of at least partially insulating the SDF’s immediate interests from its wider regional drive to retaliate against Turkey’s increasingly effective air campaign.”
Lister added, “Turkey has established a vast military advantage against the PKK, and the PKK has little means with which to reply now, apart from urban terrorism — not that that would do anything but fuel Turkey’s military actions.”
The end of the ceasefire comes as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) reassesses its strategy. Isik believes that the HDP will likely veer towards a more radical path. “Their rhetoric will grow harsher, the focus more Kurdish,” Isik predicted.
This would mark a shift from the party’s earlier efforts under its jailed former co-chair, Selahattin Demirtas, to go beyond its demands for Kurdish rights and advocate for issues that would draw liberal voters across Turkey. It worked. The HDP won seats in the June 2015 elections for the first time and denied Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) a majority, again for the first time.
However, Arzu Yilmaz, an Erbil-based academic specializing in Kurdish affairs, says the PKK’s decision to call off its ceasefire may be calculated to get Ocalan back into play. With the exception of a brief phone call with his brother, the PKK leader has been incommunicado since May 2019. If Ocalan could deliver a new ceasefire, it could set the stage for new talks with the government ahead of municipal polls that are to be held in March. Erdogan is desperate to wrest back Istanbul from the opposition, which snatched it on the back of Kurdish votes. But Erdogan’s victory has left the opposition in disarray and the Kurds with little incentive to back it again.
Demirtas’ announcement earlier this month that he was withdrawing from the HDP’s affairs can also be seen in this light. Erdogan hates him. The feelings are mutual. His absence makes a deal easier.
Isik sees few prospects for a change in Erdogan’s stance but agrees that “the Ocalan card is always on the table.” As such, the current escalation against the PKK may be designed to soften up the rebels into a deal on the government’s own terms, Isik said.
