Abdullah Öcalan: main goal is to build democratic society

Leader Abdullah Öcalan sent a message to the Peace and Democratic Integration Conference being held today in the British capital, London, and organized by the Kurdish Affairs Center. The message reads:

“The call for peace and a democratic society that I announced on February 27, 2025, opened the door to a new phase. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), democratic politics, the parties represented in the Turkish Parliament, and Turkish society as a whole supported this call. Now it is time to move forward through this open door. The topics you will discuss at the conference are precisely the issues related to this beginning. You will discuss how the political initiative can be transformed into lasting peace, drawing on international experiences and Kurdish perspectives. These discussions constitute the practical implementation of this call.

Peace cannot be achieved merely through an agreement or a law. Laying down arms is a starting point. What makes it lasting, however, is building society. The transition from armed struggle to lasting peace requires a long-term political, legal, institutional, and societal transformation. The main goal of this transformation is to build a democratic society. In my view, revolution is not a negotiation over power, but transformation through construction. Freedom obtained through violence will, within a short period, turn into the opposite of the values for which the struggle is being waged. Neither peace based on mutual respect, nor democracy and freedom, can be lasting without this; neither democracy nor social peace can take root under the shadow of arms.

The thousand-year relationship between Kurds and Turks, Kurds and Persians, and Kurds and Arabs are not a relationship based on mutual hostility, but a dialectic that, despite its ups and downs, has been built on solidarity. Today, these relationships can be renewed through democratic integration, without assimilation or separation. Separatist solutions are incompatible with the reality of this geography, because peoples, cultures, and beliefs live together in this geography. The law of brotherhood is also grounded in historical and sociological foundations.

The relationship of the Kurds with Turks, Persians, Arabs, and other peoples living on this land cannot be resolved by drawing borders. Millions of Kurds live in the major cities of the countries of the region. For example, saying, ‘Let the Kurds go to the north, and let the Turks go to the south,’ is compatible neither with historical divisions nor with social relations.

Integration is the opposite of assimilation. Assimilation dissolves and increases hostility, whereas integration creates unity and builds peace. This enables the democratic society to preserve its existence and voluntarily participate in the democratic republic within the framework of collective rights.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which I founded, emerged as an existential struggle in accordance with the circumstances of its era. It demonstrated the existence of the Kurds and broke the chain of denial. In the world of 2025, the Kurdish people have become a historical reality that can no longer be denied. Therefore, the historical mission of our movement has been completed. As is the case with every revolutionary structure, when it completes its mission, it should transform into a new form. The solution is not an end or a surrender, but a transition to a new stage of history. If we insist on the old form, the greatest losses will be suffered by the Kurdish people.

From now on, arms should not be glorified; society should be built instead. Democratic politics has replaced the strategy of national liberation struggle. Our strongest weapon is the word, the law, and organized society.

Democratic politics can only be established on a natural foundation. On this basis, it is not enough merely to lay down arms; violence and the threat of war must simultaneously be eliminated by both sides.

A Turkey in which Kurds participate with democratic awareness will truly become a democratic republic. In Turkey and the Middle East, the goal is not division, but to build a genuine democracy together.

In the Middle East, the way out of crises does not lie in creating new nation-states that destroy borders, but in revitalizing the common points among peoples—that is, through integrative dialogue and the construction of a democratic society based on communes.

A political initiative cannot be transformed into lasting peace through a decision by only one side. Integration requires joint steps, understanding, and recognition of one another’s suffering. If the process is not secured through legal agreements, it will remain no more than a short-term truce. Lasting peace is the spread of democratic politics into daily life, neighborhoods, cities, and institutions.

Without law, existence cannot acquire legal status, and democratic struggle remains without a foundation. The necessary guarantee is recognition of the democratic society, the free development of language and culture, the expansion of local-government law, and the completion of fundamental constitutional citizenship alongside free citizenship. The reconstruction of centralized and one-sided national law through constitutional and legal reforms cannot succeed without this; without it, trust will not be built. If the republic does not become democratic, democratic integration will not be achieved.

Those who engaged in armed struggle should be able to return to political and civilian life, and they should be given the opportunity to assume responsibility within democratic politics. When the process is completed, these comrades will become centers for democratic debate, law, and civil life. Through democratic integration, they will become part of society and will be actors in an era free of violence and arms.

The forms of participation that will accomplish the transformation from conflict politics to democratic politics are not limited to representative politics and elections. Communes, neighborhood and city councils, cooperatives, political parties, civil society, and local administrations are the roots of this transformation. Democratic politics encompasses all forms of organization and activity aimed at politicizing society.

Constitutional and institutional arrangements should address political, regional, linguistic, and cultural pluralism, not through a monolithic nation project, but through a democratic conception of the nation. The democratic nation is a political model in which different identities share equal rights, freedom, and unity. Linguistic, religious, cultural, and regional differences are a source of richness. The imposition of homogeneity has created crises in this region, whereas recognition of pluralism constitutes the constitutional foundation for a solution.

Because existence is embodied in language and culture, recognition of existence requires removing the obstacles that stand in the way of education and cultural development.

In a sustainable solution, local administrations should not merely share responsibilities with the center; they should also organize society’s existence through democratic local administrations. Democratic social organization works with the nation-state under the same political umbrella through the direct participation of society. The importance of the solution does not lie in central power, but in law and democratic local organization. Building councils in the fields of education, health, culture, the economy, and politics revitalizes the basic cells of a democratic society.

Women, national minorities, civil society, and the media are not issues to be postponed and ‘resolved later’; they are active elements in the current process. The question of women is the fundamental issue of a democratic society. Women’s freedom and ecological awareness are the two pillars of building a democratic society. Different identities, beliefs, and social groups should become subjects of social action. Without their active participation, legal reform will not take root and social consensus will not be achieved.

My call to the peoples of Turkey and to this conference is: the goal is not division, but to build a genuine democracy together. The Kurdish issue is no longer merely the issue of one people; it is an issue concerning the shared future of Turkey and the Middle East. What is expected of you is to take this transformation and these theoretical approaches into practice, and to connect international experience with the historical foundation of unity in this region.

If the Kurdish issue is not resolved, it will not be possible to build a calmer, safer, and more viable future for everyone in the Middle East.

The process advances through joint steps, legal guarantees, and democratic organization for all components of society. At the threshold of a new era, the main goal is not to destroy the state, but to build a free society.

This process is not against any group, nor is it for any particular group. It is a call for support and joint action by everyone who supports a solution, peace, and democratic values.

With greetings and respect,

Abdullah Öcalan

İmralı

ANHA