A historic call on horizon... Will the Turkish authorities seize the opportunity?

The region's history has always been significantly influenced by the Kurdish people, who were crucial to the Seljuks' triumph over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and the Ottoman-Safavid Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. But even though they were in favor of the Ottoman Empire at its historical junctures, they later faced betrayal.

The origins of the Kurdish problem... Partnerships that were betrayed

Kurdish regions were split between the Ottoman and Safavid governments in 1555 as part of the Treaty of Amasya, which marked the first formal separation of Kurdistan. Then came international accords that further disenfranchised Kurds, including:

The Middle East's map was altered by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which gave the Kurds the right to self-determination, was never put into effect. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) forced the Kurds to split between Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, nullifying any achievements they had made.

Without taking into account the Kurdish people's desire to create their own independent state, these agreements created new maps for the Middle East.

The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) that annulled any gains for the Kurds and imposed their division between Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

These agreements drew new maps for the Middle East without considering the aspirations of the Kurdish people to establish their independent state or even to obtain autonomy, as the Kurds have suffered historical and geographical injustices stemming from political intrigues and false promises that never materialized.

After the Kurds participated alongside Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Turkish War of Independence in 1919, they faced great disappointment when he reneged on his promise to grant them autonomy, betraying their sacrifices.

Turkish repression of the Kurds... from massacres to assimilation policies

With the declaration of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the authorities referred to the Kurds as "Mountain Turks," attempting to deny their national identity through racist laws, the most prominent of which was Article 88 of the constitution that stipulated the "Turkification" of all the country's inhabitants.

These policies ignited the anger of the Kurds, leading to the outbreak of the first major uprising led by Sheikh Saeed Piran in 1925, which the Turkish authorities met with brutal repression, destroying more than 200 villages and committing massacres that claimed the lives of 15,000 civilians.

After the failure of the uprising, the authorities issued death sentences by hanging 49 activists, among them Sheikh Saeed Piran, who said his famous words before his execution: "You cannot execute an entire people."

Atatürk did not content himself with suppressing the Kurds militarily; he also devised the "Eastern Reform Plan" in September 1925, which aimed to dismantle Kurdish identity through coercive measures, including mass displacement and demographic change. However, these policies did not lead to the Kurds' surrender.

İhsan Nuri Pasha led another rebellion in 1927, which resulted in the establishment of the Republic of Ararat. However, this rebellion was put down in 1930, and more than 15,000 Kurds in the Zilan Valley region were killed in horrifying killings carried out by the Turkish government's soldiers.

Following the atrocities, Turkish forces desecrated a grave in the Ağrı Mountains, writing on its tombstone, "Here lies the imaginary Kurdistan," before burying it in cement. This symbolic act demonstrates an exclusive mindset.

Seyid Riza led the Kurds in their 1937 revolution, but the Turkish government tricked him by giving him safe conduct, detaining him and 27 other militants, and having them all executed in November of the same year. In his final moments, Seyid Riza said: "I could not stand against your tricks and lies, and this pains me, but I did not bow my head to you, so let this be your pain."

And that was not the end of the series of repression. In 1938, the city of Dersim witnessed one of the most horrific massacres committed by the Turkish authorities against the Alevi Kurds, where soldiers burned civilians alive inside tents, resulting in the death of around 40,000 Kurds.

The beginning of armed resistance.. The founding of the Kurdistan Workers' Party

Despite the ongoing repression, the flame of the Kurdish issue was not extinguished; instead, it drove the Kurds to organize themselves into a new liberation movement. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was founded in 1978 under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan, who began the armed struggle on August 15, 1984, drawing inspiration from the spark of the prison uprising in 1982.

The international conspiracy and the capture of the leader... Turkish miscalculations

Unlike previous Kurdish uprisings, the Kurdistan Freedom Movement posed an unprecedented challenge to the Turkish state, which was unable to resolve the confrontation militarily. Consequently, it resorted to planning an international conspiracy that resulted in the arrest of leader Abdullah Ocalan on February 15, 1999, at the airport in Kenya, through a complex security and military operation involving international intelligence agencies from Greece, Kenya, the United States, Israel, and others.

Since that date, leader Abdullah Ocalan has faced severe isolation inside Imrali Prison, where he was initially sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after the death penalty was abolished in 2002.

The authorities believed that the arrest of the leader would be the end of the Kurdish resistance, but they miscalculated, as this measure did not succeed in eliminating the Kurdish liberation movement. On the contrary, the Kurdish resistance grew and intensified day by day.

A high cost paid by the Turks from their daily bread.

Turkey spends billions of dollars annually to militarily resolve the Kurdish issue, a massive expenditure that is not highlighted in the Turkish media. However, it exacerbates economic crises and burdens the Turkish people in the country. Over more than four decades, the total cost of the war has exceeded 3 trillion dollars.

Where Turkish military spending witnessed enormous increases, reaching $5.3 billion in 1990 and rising to $9.9 billion in 1999. Between 2010 and 2019, it increased by 86% to reach $20.4 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

It continued to rise, reaching 25.2 billion dollars in 2023, then jumped to 40 billion dollars in 2024, and peaked at 47 billion dollars in 2025.

This massive spending, along with Turkey's reliance on violence instead of political solutions, exacerbated inflation, deficits, and recession, plunging the Turkish economy into a severe crisis. Turkey could have been a model of peace and democracy if it had invested in democratic political solutions instead of its efforts to eliminate the Kurds and their just cause through wars and genocide.

Peace initiatives met with genocide.

To peacefully resolve the Kurdish issue, leader Abdullah Ocalan launched several initiatives, but the peace efforts with the Turkish state remained hostage to failure due to the genocidal policy that the Turkish authorities have consistently adopted in dealing with the Kurdish people's issue.

In March 1993, the Kurdistan Freedom Movement declared a unilateral ceasefire, but the process collapsed after the death of Turkish President Turgut Özal, who supported peace efforts, as it is widely believed that the deep state in Turkey killed Özal in the hospital.

In 1999, the movement renewed the ceasefire declaration, and the ceasefire continued until 2004 without achieving any tangible political progress.

In July 2010, secret negotiations took place in Oslo between the two sides, but they did not yield any results.

Between 2012 and 2013, peace talks were held after leader Abdullah Ocalan called for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish issue on March 21, 2013. Despite the progress made, the process collapsed in 2015 when Erdogan declared war against the Kurds.

The call of leader Abdullah Ocalan... a last chance for peace

Today, after more than four decades of consecutive Turkish defeats, the question remains: Have the authorities in Turkey realized that they will not be able to eliminate the Kurdish people by following a path of war and genocide? Have they understood that violence will not solve the issue of a people demanding their legitimate rights, or are they continuing with policies of repression and massacres?

Peace requires genuine will, and Turkey has a historic opportunity to end this conflict. The continuation of war is futile, as confirmed by leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned in İmralı for 26 years. He said on October 23, during a meeting with his nephew Omer Ocalan: "The isolation continues, but if the conditions are met, I have the ability to shift this process from the ground of conflict to a political and legal solution."

The world is awaiting the "historic call" from leader Abdullah Ocalan, which could bring a new turning point in the course of the Kurdish issue and for Turkey.

T/ Satt.

ANHA