Abdullah Ocalan, jailed founder of the Kurdish militant PKK group, is an icon for many Kurds but a reviled terrorist for many Turks who is now at the heart of the biggest push for peace in over a decade.
Key Factors
And I call on you to put this principle into practice,” he said in July 2025 as PKK leaders entrenched in the mountains of northern Iraq began symbolically destroying their weapons. Attitudes began shifting in October 2024 when Devlet Bahceli, a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offered Ocalan an olive branch if he would renounce violence. We are at the start of a democratisation process that will be at least as important as the founding of the Republic,” he said of Turkey’s founding in 1923.
“I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. “With this law, we are setting out to solve a historical problem.
Since then, Ocalan has been regularly visited by a small delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party that has been deeply involved in shuttle diplomacy between him and Ankara.
