The Turkish Law on the PKK: A Way Out of the Conflict Without Recognition

Alain Navarra-Navassartian. PhD sociology

Ankara, August 2026. The vote that reshapes the relationship between the Turkish state and the Kurdish movement, without necessarily resolving its central issue.

A Legal Framework as an Instrument for Conflict Regulation

On August 10, 2026, the Turkish parliament passed, by a vote of 468 to 88, a law governing the future of militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). From a sociological perspective, this vote should not be interpreted as an act of pacification in and of itself, but rather as the creation of a "legal framework": a heterogeneous set of discourses, norms, and procedures that organizes and makes governable a social situation previously addressed solely through coercion.

Titled the "Law Aimed at Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration," the text carefully avoids any direct mention of the "Kurdish question." This is a first major development: lexical euphemization. The shift in vocabulary—from "security-terrorism-territory-national unity" to "disarmament-reintegration-reconciliation-national solidarity"—is not merely rhetorical window-dressing. In the sociology of political language, any change in institutional vocabulary signals a reconfiguration of legitimate categories of perception: a process of "official naming" capable of reorganizing the way in which a social group can henceforth be conceived of and treated by the state apparatus, without, however, altering the structure of the underlying power relations.

A Conditional Amnesty: The Sociology of Law as Gradual Regulation

The mechanism envisaged is not a general amnesty but a "conditional framework": the suspension of sentences is contingent upon the security authorities' determination that the PKK has been effectively dissolved and its weapons surrendered—a determination subsequently confirmed by the National Security Council (MGK) and published in the Official Gazette. This arrangement illustrates "gradual normativity": the law does not simply state a fait accompli; rather, it establishes a timeline of successive verifications that grant the state the power to delay, suspend, or reactivate the application of the law according to its own assessment of the balance of power. The law here is not merely a text; it is a "tool of governmentality": it transforms an armed conflict into an administrative issue of procedural compliance.

The exclusion of serious crimes and life sentences handed down before June 2005—which effectively excludes Abdullah Öcalan, who has been incarcerated since 1999—confirms this logic: the law de-individualizes the militant base (approximately 125,000 people are reportedly affected, according to the pro-Kurdish DEM party) while keeping the movement's charismatic figure outside the scope of reintegration.

The conflict, which is set to enter negotiations in 2026, has its origins in the PKK's launch of armed struggle in 1984—a conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives and displaced tens of thousands of people in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. For four decades, Ankara has not eliminated this resistance but has "managed" it through gradual military weakening—a form of conflict management rather than resolution.

What this law accomplishes is an attempt to "re-internalize" dissident violence within the state apparatus: the PKK fighter ceases to be an enemy external to the political body and, under certain conditions, becomes once again a subject of law eligible for reintegration—a classic pattern described by sociologists of post-conflict transitions (Bogdan Denitch, or the work on "Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration") refer to post-combatant civic reintegration, though it lacks the symbolic mechanisms of recognition (transitional justice, shared memory, reparations) that typically accompany it in successful peace processes.

A Strategic Distinction: Depoliticizing the Conflict to Avoid the National Question

The most significant aspect of the text lies in the categorical division it establishes: on the one hand, the PKK is treated as a problem of security and armed violence; on the other, the Kurds remain mere citizens of the Turkish Republic, without any distinct collective status. This bifurcation allows the state to defuse an armed conflict that has lasted nearly forty years without having to constitutionally recognize the existence of a Kurdish national issue.

This is an act of "depoliticization through juridification": by reframing a historically political conflict (demands for national, cultural, and territorial recognition) as a technical issue of disarmament and reintegration, the Turkish government removes the dimension of identity recognition from the realm of negotiation. The law acts almost exclusively on the former, leaving the latter unresolved. However, for a large part of the Kurdish national movement, it is precisely this recognition that constitutes the central issue of the conflict—hence the assessment by Kurdish leaders, including DEM Party MP Gülistan Kiliç Koçyiğit, who described the bill as "an important but insufficient step," pointing out the "gaps" that still need to be filled.

Competing Frameworks and the Polarization of Social Representations

The sociology of ethno-national conflicts emphasizes the importance of cognitive frameworks (as defined by Snow and Benford) through which social groups interpret the same event. In Turkey, two frames have been in conflict for forty years: one segment of the population perceives the Kurdish struggle as "terrorism" and "separatism," the result of a combination of official Turkish nationalism and the PKK's actual violence; while another segment, conversely, perceives the Turkish state as a force that systematically denies the rights of a minority representing approximately 20% of the country's 86 million inhabitants.

This polarization of perspectives explains the ambivalent reception of the law: decades of violence have left behind wounded and conflicting memories, making unanimous and immediate support unlikely, regardless of the text's objective content. For his part, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has framed the initiative as part of a national and regional peace effort, stating on social media the desire to "permanently rid Turkey of the terrorist threat" and to "consolidate national unity and solidarity"—a discourse that, by widening the gap between the language of unity and the absence of differentiated recognition, clearly illustrates the tension at the heart of the initiative.

Internal Fragmentation of the Kurdish National Movement: The Question of the State

The sociology of national movements shows that they are never homogeneous blocs, but rather spaces traversed by strategic and ideological divisions. The Kurdish movement is no exception to this rule: some of its components—particularly the Kurdish organizations in Iraq—maintain a perspective centered on the territorial and thus state-related issue, while other branches, notably those aligned with the reformed PKK ideology, now advocate moving beyond the state framework in favor of demands presented as social and self-governing.

This divide is not secondary: it points to a fundamental question—that of the principle of political integration—namely, should the society to be built rest on an ethnic foundation (the logic of the ethnic nation-state) or on a political citizenship that transcends communal affiliations? Far from being resolved, this tension shapes the persistent rivalries among the various branches of the Kurdish national movement and largely determines whether the "post-PKK" era will or will not translate into a coherent political project.

Democratic Rights and Self-Determination: Beyond the End of the Armed Struggle

The de facto abandonment of the prospect of a unified Kurdish state—a prospect that was, however, theorized by the PKK in its early days—shifts the Kurdish movement's focus toward a different priority: that of democratic, cultural, and political rights. This evolution mirrors the trajectories observed in other recent protests in the Middle East and beyond—the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey itself—where popular mobilizations systematically clash with regimes willing to resort to any means, including the most violent, to preserve their positions of dominance.

The Kurds' right to self-determination is therefore no longer necessarily framed as a right to secession, but rather as a principle enabling them to collectively shape their own political trajectory. This shift—from armed struggle to engagement in the political arena—corresponds to a process of institutionalization: the transformation of a repertoire of violent protest into a repertoire of conventional action (political parties, parliamentary representation, civic mobilization)—a trend observable in many cases of de-escalation of armed conflicts (IRA/Sinn Féin, ETA/Bildu)—but whose democratic outcome remains contingent on the state's willingness to allow this political arena to truly open up.

This law must therefore be understood as an act of conflict regulation rather than a resolution of the Kurdish question. It brings about a partial depoliticization of the historical antagonism by reducing it to its security and procedural dimensions, while leaving intact—and thus unresolved—the central sociological issue: that of the collective, cultural, and political recognition of a minority representing one-fifth of the Turkish population. The history of relations between the Turkish state and the Kurdish national movement calls for caution regarding the sustainability of this framework—but it does not preclude interpreting it, in a sociological sense, as the beginning of a new regime for managing the conflict, whose democratic outcome remains, at this stage, an open question rather than a settled one.

Öcalan's Exclusion: A Lack of Charismatic Legitimacy in a Legal-Rational Framework

The exclusion of 77-year-old Abdullah Öcalan from the benefits of the law constitutes the most visible flaw in the new legal framework. Öcalan had issued a public call the previous year for the laying down of arms, arguing that the armed struggle for Kurdish rights had reached its limits and that progress should now be sought through political means. This gesture illustrates a classic role of a leader at the end of a mobilization cycle: converting his personal authority—built on commitment and sacrifice—into the legitimacy needed to end the conflict—without, however, having any institutional leverage to guarantee this conversion.

The guerrilla group, whose headquarters are located in the Kandil Mountains, has expressed disagreements regarding this process and has been critical of the new legal framework, denouncing in a statement serious shortcomings and the fact that the recommendations on democratization and the resolution of the Kurdish issue formulated by the parliamentary commission were not included in the final text. The PKK points out that the very absence of the term "Kurdish" in a law focused solely on disarmament signals, in its view, a non-comprehensive approach to the problem. This type of statement serves to maintain internal cohesion: in the absence of tangible institutional guarantees, the organization must craft a narrative capable of justifying—in the eyes of its militant base—the continuation or suspension of armed struggle.

Personal Trust as a Substitute for Institutional Guarantees

The PKK poses a central strategic equation: disarmament is inconceivable without opening a legal political pathway for former combatants; otherwise, neither the fighters in the mountains nor the political leaders in exile in Europe will be able to return. Reha Ruhavioğlu, director of the Kurdish Studies Center (KSC) in Diyarbakir, summarizes the fragility of the arrangement: the law offers only a partial guarantee—the legal possibility of return for those facing prosecution—while the true guarantee rests on Öcalan's personal authority, as he asks his militants to trust him without any institutional mechanism to secure this commitment.

This observation illustrates a classic phenomenon in the aftermath of armed conflict: the lack of third-party guarantees (independent institutions, international verification mechanisms, transitional justice frameworks) forces asymmetrical peace processes to rely on personal relational capital, which is structurally more fragile and non-transferable than a legal or institutional guarantee. The gamble on disarmament thus rests less on an architecture of mutual trust between the parties than on an individual authority at the end of his life's journey and politically neutralized by his incarceration.

A Heterogeneous Parliamentary Coalition and the Reconfiguration of the Political Landscape

The passage of the law brought together a parliamentary coalition that, at first glance, seemed paradoxical: Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its coalition partners—the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)—which had initiated the debate on Öcalan's possible release—as well as the pro-Kurdish DEM party. Conversely, opposition came both from the most nationalist camp—which labeled the process "treason"—and from the Turkish left, which remains wary of the lack of transparency surrounding the disarmament process and is suspicious of Erdoğan's electoral calculations aimed at securing Kurdish support to cement a new term in office.

This voting pattern illustrates a well-documented phenomenon: the formation of coalitions of conflicting interests, in which actors with incompatible ideologies temporarily converge around the same legislation for radically different reasons—security-based pacification for the MHP, democratic openness for the DEM, and consolidation of power for the AKP. This type of coalition, unstable by design, in no way prejudges a substantive consensus on the political outcome of the process.

The most defining feature of the process lies in its very architecture: it is not a classic model of negotiation between two parties on an equal institutional footing, but rather a peace administered by the Turkish state, with a strong domestic political dimension. The state simultaneously occupies the position of both a party to the conflict and an arbiter of the conflict resolution process—a configuration that breaks with the standard model of peace negotiation theorized by conflict resolution research (which traditionally assumes a form of parity, at least procedural, between the parties, as seen in third-party-guaranteed processes).

This structural asymmetry allows us to interpret the Kurdish peace as a strategic resource for governance rather than as the outcome of a balanced negotiation. It allows Erdoğan to move beyond the security paradigm that has shaped his policy for years, while providing him with multiple benefits: a reduction in violence in the Southeast, a strengthening of Turkey's position in Syria, an easing of the security pressure weighing on the state apparatus, and a redefining of the electoral balance of power between the ruling party, the CHP, and the DEM. In this sense, one must not separate the analysis of the peace process from the analysis of the governmental rationality underlying it: peace here is not merely an end in itself; it is an instrument for reshaping the domestic power structure.

The Risk of Pacification Without Democratization

The central risk identified is that of a "peace" without democratization—the attainment of a negative peace (cessation of direct violence) without progress toward a positive peace (structural transformation of the relationships of justice, recognition, and political participation). At the same time, the government is pursuing a separate agenda: that of a new Constitution, the adoption of which remains contingent on the balance of political power. Erdoğan and his ally, the ultranationalist leader Devlet Bahçeli, could thus seek to kill two birds with one stone: securing the dissolution of the PKK while relying on a faction of Kurdish representatives to gather the parliamentary support needed for a reform that would consolidate the presidential system—and, by extension, their full powers.

This scenario illustrates a classic mechanism of political co-optation: the selective integration of a faction of a protest movement into governing majorities, in exchange for a partial resolution of its demands, without any structural transformation of the institutional system whose functioning the movement initially contested.

The Kurds thus find themselves in a delicate position. The actual implementation of the measures passed will depend on the internal balance of power within the state apparatus and the National Security Council (MGK), where the military retains significant influence. Sociologically, the Turkish military acts here as a veto power: an entity capable of slowing down, filtering, or blocking the effective implementation of a political decision, regardless of its parliamentary legitimacy. The disarmament of Kurdish fighters may thus proceed more rapidly than the political recognition and legal guarantees that should normally accompany it—since the security dimension of the process is structurally easier to advance than its democratic dimension, as it does not require a renegotiation of internal institutional balances.

The Discursive Framing of Power: From "Turkish Peace" to the Turkish-Kurdish Alliance

It is within this context that we must analyze the discourse of Devlet Bahçeli, one of the main architects of the process, who speaks of a "Turkish peace" extending beyond national borders, while Erdoğan prefers the phrase "an alliance between Turks and Kurds." These two discursive frameworks, which appear complementary, implicitly suggest the prospect of a predominantly Sunni rapprochement, capable of counterbalancing the influence of Shiite Iran in the region.

These formulations are not merely communication tools: they constitute interpretive frameworks designed to frame an internal disarmament process as the precursor to a broader geopolitical project. In both cases, the same ambition shines through: to make Turkey the center of gravity of a new regional order, driven by a vision that can be described as neo-Ottoman. Peace with the PKK thus becomes a foreign policy tool and a vehicle for projecting power, linking domestic pacification efforts with a regional leadership strategy.

Peace, But in the Service of What Agenda?

After forty years of war, the relevant question is therefore no longer simply whether Ankara will make peace with the PKK, but what it intends to do with that peace. Is the goal to build a lasting political solution to the Kurdish question, based on recognition and democratization, or to integrate forces hardened by several decades of asymmetric warfare into Turkey's regional strategy, particularly in Syria? This latter scenario—that of a geopolitical instrumentalization of disarmament—would, however, run up against the structural diversity of Kurdish actors, whose strategic positions diverge sharply from one country to another, as well as against regional power dynamics, which cannot easily be subordinated to a single national agenda. We are therefore invited to view this process not as a final outcome, but as a moment of ongoing reconfiguration of the relationships between the state, the Kurdish national movement, and the regional order.