Distrust erodes hopes for permanent peace in Turkiye’s Kurdish heartland

Turkiye's peace process with Kurdish militants faces uncertainty, with potential to boost stability or fuel conflict.

Turkiye’s crackdown on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival and silence on what reforms might follow the end of a 40-year conflict with Kurdish militants are stoking distrust among Kurds anxious to see what a fragile peace process may bring.

At stake is a potential boost to NATO member Turkiye’s political and economic stability that may encourage moves to ease tensions elsewhere in the West Asia. Failure could fuel economic and social woes in the country’s less developed southeast and add to a death toll already exceeding 40,000.

Jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call last month for his militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to disband following an approach by an Erdogan ally was a gift to the government, after unsuccessful past attempts to end the conflict. The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, is now demanding that democratisation steps follow. The PKK heeded the call, declaring an immediate ceasefire. The group added it wanted Mr. Ocalan himself to manage the disarmament and political and democratic conditions must be established for peace to succeed.

“We are entering a minefield. It could go off the rails and end in failure. That is possible,” said DEM lawmaker Cengiz Candar, closely involved in the Kurdish issue since the early 1990s, when the first in a series of peace efforts failed.

DEM has held three meetings with Mr. Ocalan at his Imrali island prison, south of Istanbul, where he has been held since his capture in 1999. But they say Ankara is keeping them in the dark about any reform roadmap.

Turkiye’s presidency did not respond to a request for a comment on the issues raised here and officials from Mr. Erdogan’s AK Party say it is for the President to speak on the peace process. But he has not shed much light.

“The democratic space for politics will naturally expand further after disarmament,” Mr. Erdogan has said after Mr. Ocalan’s peace call.