ANKARA/BAGHDAD: Just two weeks after Turkiye’s parliament made recommendations on how to advance the country’s peace process with Kurdish militants, the Iran war broke out, plunging the Middle East into fresh instability and bringing new doubts on both sides.
Turkiye has warned of the risk of new Kurdish mobilizations in Iran and Iraq and, according to a government official, played a key role in quashing a short-lived US-Israeli idea to back a Kurdish militant ground invasion of Iran from Iraq.
Since then, Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have dug in to watch the fallout of the war, each refusing to move next and stalling efforts to end the four-decade conflict, according to interviews with Turkish officials, lawmakers, and representatives of the northern Iraq-based PKK.
For now, both President Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the militant group are unwilling to take bold steps — especially with the region destabilized, the interviews show.
The government appears reluctant to enact legislative reforms including a potential amnesty for former PKK fighters, and to give the group’s jailed leader an official role in the peace process. Ankara says the PKK must fully disarm first.
