Debunked PKK Leader Ocalan Will Never Be Set Free

The ‘peace process’ is a trap to bury Kurdish political goals in Turkey

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

More than any other actor, it is Abdullah Öcalan that has undone the PKK and with it the Kurdish cause that the PKK claimed to represent.

Much political and media fanfare has been made about the so-called ‘peace process’ between the PKK and the AKP government over the past year. On March 1, 2025 the PKK declared yet another unilateral ceasefire.

Captive PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, had called upon his party to devolve/dissolve itself and give up their weapons on February 27, 2025. The PKK imposed conditions to such ‘negotiations’ with the autocratic AKP government still led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 23 years. However, with their leader still held prisoner into his 27th year of virtual isolation on Imrali island many in the Kurdish elite remain wary about the sincerity of the Turkish side.

Öcalan had acted much the same in August 1999 announcing a ceasefire that generally lasted until 2004. At Newroz (Kurdish New Year) on 21 March 2013 he had again called on the PKK to lay down their weapons – this time in the name of the ‘solution process.’

The July 20, 2015, Suruç massacre in Kurdish Urfa put paid to that: an Islamist suicide bomber detonated his vest killing more than thirty people that had been meeting in a cultural centre in solidarity with the Kurdish resistance in Kobane against ISIS across the border. 1 The youth association met to discuss how to help rebuild Kobane. 2

Mini pyre

A theatrical show of burning a heap of weapons in a semi-public setting was staged around a year ago on 11 July 2025. This piece of theatre, in retrospect, largely took place for the benefit of the doubt. In my opinion, it was little other than a political circus.

The weapons-burning was orchestrated in Jasana cave in the mountainous area of Sulaimaniya under the control of the PUK; the PKK and the KDP have historically had bad blood. The KDP has openly collaborated with Turkey for years: the party has enabled Turkish Intelligence agents (MIT) and the Turkish military to operate without restrictions against the PKK in the ‘yellow’ zone under the control of the corrupt Barzani leadership.

Despite several unilateral PKK ceasefires over the decades, the Turkish side has never demonstrated any change in its deeply racist attitudes, its militarist rhetoric or its actual militarisation of the Kurdish region within the modern-day borders of Turkey.

Millions of words have been spoken but there has never been any lasting or convincing response to Kurdish gestures.

If you consider at the ceremony of the weapons’ destruction it can be seen that there were no more than around 30 PKK militants taking part, and that a small pyre of arms was destroyed. It was symbolic.

Just days later a senior PKK cadre announced that no more such ceremonies would take place. The party has demanded legally binding guarantees from Erdogan along with the requisite changes to the constitution. They demand a special parliamentary commission to take over the next steps.

Media headlines asserting that the PKK was/is dissolving itself are still just that; nothing concrete has happened because the Turkish side has so far not met any of the opposition’s demands that might actually help to pave a path to equality.

Helin Ümit, a cadre within the PKK’s Central Committee structure, claimed the weak-sounding, “Peace and Democratic Society Group, “is preparing for democratic political participation”. The message had been delivered at the (symbolic) ceremony” she maintained.

Her terms of nomenclature arise from Ocalan’s embrace of Murray Bookchin’s philosophy dating from the 1980s 4 yet sounds more like the language of Orwell’s 1984.

The PKK’s collective amnesia

This is plain nonsense because the PKK has always operated a political platform and was not just defined by its armed wing. The armed wing had originally been called the Kurdistan Freedom Brigades (HRK), then in 1986, this mutated to the People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK) before its further mutation to the People’s Defense Forces (HPG).

The word ‘Kurdistan’ was dropped in 1999 after Öcalan’s capture on February 15, 1999. Regrettably, for the wider Kurdish community, the quest for Kurdish rights through the long and bloody decades of struggle that once stipulated an independent and then an autonomous Kurdistan has since become conflated with ‘freedom for Öcalan’.

Cadres like Helin Ümit (a nom de guerre – her surname means ‘hope’ in Turkish) appear to suffer from amnesia: they forget the PKK’s own history when trotting out the accepted currency of Bookchin-flavoured semantics: “At the beginning of the process, there were calls to grant Öcalan the right to hope for freedom, but so far, no change has been made in Öcalan’s situation,” she said. “For the process to be viable, it must be enshrined in law by the Turkish parliament to prevent it from being derailed by future political problems…” 6

But even back in 2023 – just three years ago – this same spokesperson had been speaking much more clearly, and “argued that what she called the genocidal war against the Kurdish people remains a defining factor in Turkey’s politics and economy. She said that a full understanding of Turkey’s political dynamics requires acknowledging the politics of İmralı and dismissing the notion of a detached democratic system as a misconception…”

Ümit was reported at that time to have adopted “a strong stance against the ruling AKP, condemning its almost 25 years in power. She accused the party of orchestrating, tolerating, collaborating with and accelerating criminal organisations.

Ümit argued that a conspiratorial bloc has been a feature of all Turkish governments since 1923, with the current coalition between the AKP and the far-right MHP representing the most sophisticated form. She held the government responsible for the formulation of the most conspiratorial and special war policies, which contributed to what she described as the darkest period of the country’s history.” 7

What has happened to Öcalan?

Many thousands of supporters quit the PKK after Öcalan’s capture in 1999, often in personal responses to his poor court performance and his claims that his mother was Turkish – along with utterances of guilt over Kurdish actions that he hoped would appease his captors. For example, he grovelled when he stressed the closeness of Turks and Kurds in history.

An author of a recent and highly-detailed book on the PKK, Aliza Marcus, had noted of Öcalan’s court performance: “I am sorry,” said Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, after a woman blamed him for the death of her soldier husband. “I understand your pain.” Kurds waited for him to continue, but he said nothing else.

Ocalan, who is responsible for leading the biggest Kurdish rebellion in Turkey’s history, did not bother to add that Kurdish families are also grieving. In fact, during the nine-day trial held in June on the island prison in the Sea of Marmara, he rarely mentioned what led Kurds to support the PKK. 8

Aliza Marcus’s new book, ‘Resilience and Revolution: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight in Turkey and Syria’ has just been published in an updated edition and offers a historic perspective devoid of amnesia. 9

In the two-plus decades since his capture and sentencing, Abdullah Öcalan has been successfully coerced by the Turkish government to hand them the PKK and Kurdish goals on a plate.

“More than any other actor, it is Abdullah Öcalan that has undone the PKK and with it the Kurdish cause the PKK claimed to represent” one angry Kurdish critic emphasised to me. “That the HDP and its ‘affiliates’ should follow such a path is even more pitiful. I cannot believe my own people can be so blind, so stupid.”

Öcalan’s recent video appearances bear no resemblance to his former character or public style to the extent that one might ask if he has been subjected to a lobotomy. He was held apart so long without visits by his lawyers or approved intermediaries that anything is possible. He has even been constrained to clip his moustache according to the Sunni-Islamist fashion showing the upper lip, unlike the bushy left-wing Kurdish moustache fashion of his heyday as a freer man in Damascus.

“Terror-Free Türkiye” propaganda does not equate to Kurdish rights

The Turkish AKP-MHP government has not made any constitutional changes and continues to use the language of ‘terrorism’ vowing to annihilate the PKK. Erdogan makes and breaks laws as it suits him. A major case in point was in turning his former ally, the late Islamist Fethullah Gulen and his movement into a ‘terrorist’ phenomenon.

The dissolution of the PKK has not happened just as when the group changed its name to KADEK for a short while. 11 This irritating word speak is much like the new variant of “The Peace and Democratic Society Group”. Advocating a ‘democratic solution at election time back in November 2002, almost twenty-four years ago, the PKK expended much rhetoric – but little changed.

Erdogan’s goal is PKK disarmament, in tandem with that of the YPG/SDF in Syria and the destruction of all PKK-linked/sympathetic affiliates. His overriding aim is to smother Kurdish political aspirations through depriving Kurds of their historic resort to ‘armed struggle’ despite the fact that the Iraqi Kurdish parties retain their respective peshmerga forces – and that these are now very well armed and highly trained by their Western backers.

Turkey is looking to crush Kurdish resistance in the name of ending ‘terrorism’ using slogans like ‘a terror free Turkey. That is not the same as peace or equality for Turkey’s long-suffering Kurds.

A draft law envisioned for ‘discussion’ this month is still being ‘discussed’. Any negotiations appear to be mainly ‘back channel’ with the pro-Öcalan HDP camp running the gauntlet as custom. 13The ‘KCK” is also referred to as part of the terrorist structure despite the KCK – Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union – being solely political14 – and to some extent a forerunner of the ‘Peace and Democratic Society Group.’

These name combinations have arisen throughout the struggle for legal representation through the parliamentary system – SDP, to HEP, ÖZEP, ÖZDEP, DEP, HADEP, DEHAP, DTH, DTP, BDP, HDP, DBP, and DEM – it doesn’t change. This movement reflects the same PKK-speak throughout its history.15

AKP officials claim any draft legislation can be expected to consist of 10 – 11 articles but would enter into force only after the government verifies that the PKK has laid down its arms. A title for it like “Law on the Dissolution, Disarmament, and Termination of the Legal Existence of the PKK-KCK Terrorist Organization,” is being bandied about according to the AKP.

AKP spokesperson, Ömer Çelik, claimed discussions had reached the stage of “evaluating a legal framework” but this would only take effect after the organization’s disarmament, thereby putting the cart before the horse. Çelik stated all of the PKK ‘extensions’ must also be dissolved.

The stumbling block is clearly that the PKK is expected to go the entire distance before any legal guarantees are even put into place by their long term foes.

The Kurdish quest for self-determination in Turkey is being conflated with ‘terrorism’ just as it has been by successive Turkish governments since the term ‘terrorism’ became fashionable. Kurdish parties that were once referred to as ‘brigands’ and ‘communists’ simply became ‘terrorists’.

Thus the slogan of a ‘terror-free Tükiye’ has nothing to do with peace or Bookchin’s utopian ‘democratic society’. Turkey’s society is a highly militarised society based on racist edicts enshrined in the Constitution.

The PKK for its part, dropped the word ‘Kurdistan’ once Öcalan wrecked his own vehicle of “independence for Kurdistan” and his followers sacrificed ever more to secure his freedom.

Scores of supporters worldwide had burned themselves to death for Öcalan even before he was first captured. Thousands fought or fell at the hands of the Turkish death squads and special forces. Female guerrillas were raped and their corpses mutilated by Turkish Special Forces, the army and gendarmes.

Today, torture is as prevalent in Turkey as ever and the entire Kurdish majority region is entirely militarised like one giant armed camp. There is no place in the Turkish constitution for ‘Kurds.’ This is highly unlikely to change while Erdogan remains alive and in power.

NATO’S weapons bounty

Meanwhile, NATO is about to give Turkey ‘tens of billions in defense deals’ – a sure sign of ‘peaceful’ future planning.

NATO Secretary-General, former Dutch premier, Mark Rutte 17 said the July 7 and 8 NATO summit in Turkey’s capital would focus on defense industry cooperation, weapons production and support for Ukraine: “We need to ensure that we are translating our economic might into military capabilities,” Rutte said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington…”18

Historically speaking, Turkey has turned NATO (and US) supplied weapons on its Kurdish minority breaking its end-use obligations but to little – if any – real censure. Human Rights Watch reported with concern in the mid-1990s. An extract from the November 1995 report, Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey had stated:

“The United States government in particular has been deeply involved in arming Turkey and supporting its arms production capacities. Although several NATO governments have occasionally protested Turkish policies, most have continued to supply Turkey with arms.

This report documents the Turkish security forces’ violations of the laws of war and of human rights, and their reliance on U.S. and NATO-supplied weapons in doing so. Drawing on investigations of twenty-nine incidents that occurred between 1992 and 1995, the report links specific weapons systems to individual incidents of Turkish violations.

Supplemented by interviews with former Turkish soldiers, U.S. officials and defense experts, the report concludes that U.S. weapons, as well as those supplied by other NATO members, are regularly used by Turkey to commit severe human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war in the southeast.

The most egregious examples of Turkey’s reliance on U.S. weaponry in committing abuses are its use of U.S.-supplied fighter-bombers to attack civilian villages and its use of U.S.-supplied helicopters in support of a wide range of abusive practices, including the punitive destruction of villages, extrajudicial executions, torture, and indiscriminate fire…” 19

Time has not improved Turkey’s conduct. The UN’s OHCR has urged Turkey ‘not to turn back the clock on human rights’ and to end the criminalisation of human rights defenders and lawyers through the use of the rhetoric of ‘terrorism’ – just as with the so-called ‘peace process’:

“The misuse of anti-terrorism laws has been the subject of multiple letters from UN Special Procedures mandate holders to the Turkish Government in 2023 and 2020. The İHD has also been the subject of numerous communications to the Turkish authorities, most recently in 2022 and 2021. The most recent prosecution of its staff is linked to their work on prisoners’ rights, alleged torture cases and the promotion of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue.” 20

But is anyone listening?

Related posts:

What makes a good NATO ally? The Case of Turkey Turkey: The Psychological War Against the Kurds Through the PKK – Part I Business with ISIS – Updated The PKK’s Personality Cult: Changing Influences – Part II Distorting the Kurdish Question in Turkey Turkey: Nato’s Islamic State Member Can Apo Save The Kurds? There is no hope in Ocalan’s unilateral peace initiative No democracy in Turkey – ‘insulting Kurdishness’: Interview with Sheri Laizer Ocalan calls to ‘dissolve’ PKK and urges its fighters to lay down arms