Turkey has taken its first legislative step toward ending the conflict with the PKK
The Turkish Parliament approved a bill submitted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling party that provides forharsher penalties for some members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who are willing to lay down their arms. The bill marks the first legislative step in the process of ending the long-standing conflict.
The bill was approved by 468 lawmakers, with 88 voting against it and six abstaining. The bill provides for the suspension of criminal prosecution and imprisonment for certain offenses punishable by terms ranging from five to ten years.
According to lawmakers’ estimates, in the initial phase, this could affect approximately 3,500 people associated with the RPK. If individuals covered by the law do not commit new crimes during the specified period, the cases against them may be closed, and their sentences will be considered served.
At the same time, the law does not apply to individuals involved in serious crimes, particularly murders.
Despite the law’s passage, the document does not address the future of 77-year-old Abdullah Öcalan—the founder of the PKK, who has been imprisoned for the past 27 years on Imrali Island near Istanbul.
It was Öcalan who played a key role in launching the current peace process. In February 2025, he called on his supporters to lay down their arms and shift to political and democratic methods of defending the rights of the Kurdish minority.
At the same time, PKK representatives had previously stated that Öcalan’s release is one of the main conditions for the process to be fully concluded. The group’s leadership warned that without this, some provisions of the new law might remain merely a formality.
Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz stated that Öcalan’s case does not fall under the scope of the new law. At the same time, he noted that the PKK’s founder could play a role in the peace process, without providing further details.
After the vote, Yılmaz called the adoption of the document a “historic step” and stated that the broad support in parliament demonstrates a political consensus.
“We expect the disarmament and disbandment processes to be carried out as soon as possible,” he said.
Devlet Bahçeli—leader of the nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and an ally of President Erdoğan—also viewed the vote positively. It was his unexpected support for dialogue with Öcalan in the fall of 2024 that became one of the factors leading to the start of the current process, according to France 24.
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