How Turkey's PKK amnesty law entwines Kurds' hopes with Erdogan's ambitions

A draft framework law resulting from more than two years of negotiations between the Turkish state and the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was submitted to the parliament’s Justice Committee on Wednesday in what some call a historic milestone and others a humiliating capitulation by the Kurdish-led resistance movement.

Either way, it marks the first time the Turkish state has introduced legislation in parliament following direct talks with Abdullah Ocalan, a man who was long vilified as a "baby killer" and terrorist and was sentenced to death in a courtroom trial in 1999 following his capture by Turkish special forces in Nairobi earlier that year. It is also the first time any Turkish government has pursued a political solution rather than a military one to end the four-decade-long war between the Turkish army and the PKK, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives, most of them Kurdish.

The law, titled the "Bill on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration," is expected to be voted on in a plenary session as early as Friday.

It consists of 12 articles and establishes a staggered legal mechanism covering PKK rebels and others linked to the organization who qualify for full or partial amnesty under its terms. Offenses covered by the bill include membership in or leadership of the organization, as well as engaging in propaganda and raising funds on its behalf. A board — overseen by the president and consisting of Turkish diplomatic, military and intelligence officials along with representatives from the Interior and Justice ministries — will coordinate and supervise the PKK's disarmament and dissolution. A 17-member monitoring committee will follow up with further laws in the parliament.

As of the time of publication, at least 360 lawmakers in the 600-member Turkish legislature had signed the bill.

Its passage has as much bearing on the Kurds’ decades-long struggle for political equality as it does on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political future.

Under the current constitution, Erdogan cannot run for a third term when his current mandate expires in May 2028. A referendum on constitutional amendments to change the relevant article requires at least 360 votes. Wednesday’s support for the bill suggests that Erdogan could corral enough votes to secure such a referendum. Friday’s session may also show that he may not even need one if 400 lawmakers vote in favor of the bill.

Quite a bit will hinge on Ocalan and the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), which holds 56 seats in parliament. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) allies jointly hold 323 seats, falling 37 short of the 360 needed not only to trigger a constitutional referendum but also to call snap elections, which would likewise allow Erdogan to circumvent the presidential term limit.

In a statement shared by DEM on Monday, Ocalan signaled his support for the government. While noting that the legislation left much unaddressed, the 78-year-old rebel leader stressed that it constituted "a key" that would "crack open the door" to further reforms.

"This law won’t fix the Kurdish question in and of itself, but it’s a start," Ceylan Akca Cupolo, a DEM lawmaker for Diyarbakir, the Kurds’ informal capital in southeastern Turkey, told Al-Monitor. "It’s a good start to lay the groundwork for future dialogue and the legal amendments needed to resolve the century-long Kurdish problem," Cupolo said.

Another wild card is Ozgur Ozel, the ousted leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) who broke away to form his own New Party. The New Party, with 91 lawmakers, is now the main opposition grouping and could yet expand. Ozel is expected to vote in favor of the bill, in a bid to woo Kurdish voters and sustain bridges with DEM.

Ocalan and his top lieutenants, with the latter based in the Qandil Mountains and elsewhere along the Iraq-Turkey border, do not fall within the bill’s scope. Moreover, it remains unclear whether Selahattin Demirtas — Turkey’s most popular Kurdish politician, who led DEM’s forerunner, the People’s Democratic Party, and who has been jailed since 2016 on a panoply of thinly evidenced terrorism charges — will benefit, in line with repeated calls by the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings are binding on Turkey.

Secret talks between Ocalan and the Turkish government began in April 2024, as first reported by Al-Monitor, with two aims. One was to enlist Ocalan's support to end his armed campaign and to use his influence over the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to have them integrate with Damascus. The other was to get DEM to back Erdogan's plans to remain in power.

The talks were made public in October that year, when the MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, invited Ocalan to order his fighters to end their armed campaign before the Turkish parliament and suggested that he too might benefit from a potential amnesty.

Ocalan duly obliged from his prison cell in February 2025 and has since called on the Kurds to "integrate" with the Turkish state. On May 12, 2025, the PKK announced that it was ending its armed campaign for Kurdish autonomy within Turkey and dissolving the organization in line with Ocalan’s call. On July 11 of that same year, a group of rebels held a symbolic weapons-burning ceremony in the mountains near Sulaimaniyah, an area under the PUK’s control.

Several members of that group are expected to return to Turkey, along with exiled Kurdish politicians and other PKK-linked individuals, after the law is passed. How the first batch of returnees is handled will be a key test of the government’s sincerity and help determine the future of the process, according to rebel sources speaking on background to Al-Monitor.

Ocalan "continues to fight for equal rights for the Kurds in a democratic Turkey. When he speaks of Kurdish integration with the state, it can only be on that basis," one of the sources said. Others concede that it is all a big gamble and that much will depend on Erdogan, whose overriding instinct is self-preservation.

The AKP’s earlier attempts to forge a lasting peace agreement with the PKK — in 2008 and again in 2012 — failed amid mutual recriminations, and on each occasion the conflict resumed with even greater ferocity. The anti-Islamic State alliance forged in 2014 between the Pentagon and the PKK’s Syrian branch, which later expanded to include Arab fighters, heightened Turkish paranoia about Western plans to establish an independent Kurdish state.

However, the dramatic geopolitical changes following Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel propelled Ankara to reach out to the PKK at a time when it believed it had already established military superiority through its much-vaunted drone capabilities. With Iran driven out of Syria, Islamist ally Ahmed al-Sharaa installed in Damascus and the United States embracing him — effectively at the Kurds’ expense — Turkey now appears far more confident about reaching a deal with the PKK, one whose terms it is, for the time being, largely setting and imposing.

However, the conflict with Iran could yet upend Turkey’s calculations despite President Donald Trump’s decision not to support the armed Iranian Kurdish opposition. He is widely believed to have made that decision at Erdogan’s behest. But the famously unpredictable US president could yet change his mind. Moreover, the PKK’s Iranian affiliate, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, says that Ocalan did not include them when calling on the rebels to disarm and disband.