In August, Turkey’s parliament passed a law that will allow thousands of members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to lay down their weapons and thousands more political prisoners and exiles to return to normal life. Over the coming months, hundreds of PKK members are expected to travel to Turkey to take advantage of the new law and reintegrate into a country that they left behind to take up arms against. This was unimaginable only a few years ago, when Turkey and the PKK were locked in a conflict that stretched across Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Now, for the first time in 30 years of on-and-off negotiations between the PKK and the Turkish state, a legal basis for the end of armed conflict exists.
For decades, a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict was long seen as vital for Turkey’s full democratization. Yet last month’s development was met with widespread criticism from some of the most outspoken supporters of Turkish democracy. Their concern, which has been voiced widely in Turkey, is that the agreement is a cynical ploy by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to win Kurdish support for perpetuating his authoritarian rule. Moreover, many question whether the government will actually follow through and provide real political concessions to the country’s Kurds.
