Abstract

In May 2025, the Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, announced that it would disband entirely. This announcement ends 40 years of conflict between the Turkish state and the rebel group. The reduction of hostilities between the PKK and Ankara was motivated by Ankara’s desire to minimize external support for the PKK, which would undermine Turkish security, and President Erdoğan’s political motivation to get the Kurdish votes to amend the constitution. However, if the fundamental concerns of the Kurdish community remain unaddressed, the conflict would likely continue, with the “PKK” operating under a different name. 

Historical Background: 

The Kurds are a predominantly Sunni ethnolinguistic group that resides in Iran, Iraq, Türkiye, and Syria. (Center for Preventive Action, 2025). During Ottoman rule, the millet system categorized people based on their religion, rather than ethnicity. As a result, since most Kurds were Sunni Muslims, they had relative freedom in practicing their cultural traditions. (Mohammed & Romano, 2023, pp. 7–8). However, after the First World War, the Kurds desired their own country, encompassing the greater Kurdistan region. 

The aspirations of the Kurds increased under President Woodrow Wilson, who pushed forth the idea of self-determination following the 12th point of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which said:

“The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development.” (Mohammed & Romano, 2023, pp. 7-8)

However, with the British and French taking control of the Levant and the Turkish government taking control over all of the non-Arab Muslim majority lands of the former Ottoman Empire, the Kurds never got their state. Within Türkiye, the Kurds constitute nearly one-fifth of Türkiye’s population and live primarily in the southeastern part of the country. In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan established the PKK to create an independent Kurdish state, starting a 40-year guerrilla conflict between the Turkish government and the PKK (Center for Preventive Action, 2025). However, on February 27, 2025, Ocallan released a statement saying that PKK fighters should lay down their arms and said that instead of an armed struggle, a political battle for securing more Kurdish rights (Hubbard and Timur, 2025). Later, in May 2025, the PKK announced that it would disband entirely, effectively ending the four-decade insurgency (Butler, 2025). 

Reason 1: The Sèvres Syndrome 

One reason that motivated the Turks to make this deal was to neutralize other countries using the PKK to challenge Turkish interests. According to Coşkun (2025), “Türkiye has always been concerned with the PKK’s growing international recruitment and financing network, as well as its safe havens in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.” For example, under Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian government backed the PKK to cause problems for Türkiye, especially over the Hatay province dispute (TRT World, 2019). The Iranians have supported the PKK in the 1990s and the YPG during the 2010s to challenge Turkish interests in northern Iraq and Syria (Azizi & Çevik, 2022, pp. 3). Likewise, the Turkish government views with immense paranoia the Western support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a group that the Turks consider to be part of the PKK. 

These fears of other countries using the PKK against Türkiye reflect the “Sèvres syndrome,” which refers to the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. Although never implemented, a European plan existed to divide the former Ottoman territories along ethnic lines. Hence, the Turkish paranoia toward external support for the PKK reflects the Sèvres syndrome (Schmid, 2015, pp. 7, 11). This cessation of hostilities with the PKK would reduce the capacity for other countries to use the PKK to cause problems for Ankara and make it easier for the Turks to consolidate influence in post-Assad Syria. 

Reason 2: Split the Political Opposition

Another factor that influenced Erdoğan to make this deal was to split the political opposition, which rests on a loose coalition of political parties, such as the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), whose unity hinged on their shared opposition to Erdoğan (Sofos, 2025). 

Thus, by offering a deal to grant greater Kurdish rights, Erdoğan hopes to secure the DEM’s support for amending the constitution, allowing him to run for another term as president (Cagaptay, 2025). 

Is this Conflict Over?

On the one hand, “if the past is any indicator, pro-Kurdish parties and civil society organizations currently engaged in negotiations may again be discarded if they no longer serve Erdoğan’s interests” (Sofos, 2025). For example, in 2015, when an ISIS terrorist attack in Türkiye, a Kurdish-majority town, ended a two-year ceasefire (Center for Preventive Action, 2025). 

Moreover, as Garo Paylan, a former member of the Turkish parliament, points out, “...without concrete commitments on political representation…,” Türkiye’s outreach risks being symbolic (Coşkun & Paylan, 2025). Thus, as long as the foundational problems between the Turkish government and the Kurds are not resolved, new Kurdish insurgent groups can emerge under different names. 

However, if it succeeds, “Erdoğan will be celebrated as the president who got rid of what many in Türkiye see as the country’s top security threat” (International Crisis Group, 2025). The conflict has resulted in the deaths of 40 thousand people, and if this ceasefire succeeds, it will represent a seminal event in the country’s history (Center for Preventive Action, 2025). 

Time will only tell which path Türkiye and the Kurds will choose.