عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

Efforts to End Kurdish Militant Conflict in Türkiye Face Syria Test

Türkiye's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) officials Pervin Buldan, Ahmet Turk and Sirri Sureyya Onder, stand for a picture flanked by other Republican People's Party officials, as they meet at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Türkiye, January 7, 2025. Dogusan Ozer/Republican People's Party/Handout via REUTERS
Türkiye's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) officials Pervin Buldan, Ahmet Turk and Sirri Sureyya Onder, stand for a picture flanked by other Republican People's Party officials, as they meet at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Türkiye, January 7, 2025. Dogusan Ozer/Republican People's Party/Handout via REUTERS
TT
TT

Efforts to End Kurdish Militant Conflict in Türkiye Face Syria Test

Türkiye's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) officials Pervin Buldan, Ahmet Turk and Sirri Sureyya Onder, stand for a picture flanked by other Republican People's Party officials, as they meet at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Türkiye, January 7, 2025. Dogusan Ozer/Republican People's Party/Handout via REUTERS
Türkiye's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) officials Pervin Buldan, Ahmet Turk and Sirri Sureyya Onder, stand for a picture flanked by other Republican People's Party officials, as they meet at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Türkiye, January 7, 2025. Dogusan Ozer/Republican People's Party/Handout via REUTERS

Talks aimed at ending a 40-year-old militant conflict have fostered peace hopes in Türkiye but the precarious situation of Kurdish forces in Syria and uncertainty about Ankara's intentions have left many Kurds anxious about the path ahead.
Abdullah Ocalan, jailed head of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, has been cited as indicating a willingness to call on the PKK to lay down arms in a peace process to end the insurgency he launched against NATO-member Türkiye in 1984.
The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, stunted development in the mainly Kurdish southeast and caused deep political divisions.
Türkiye's pro-Kurdish DEM Party met Ocalan in late December and has since held talks with other parties including President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP), to discuss Ocalan's proposal, with both sides describing the talks as "positive". Two DEM sources told Reuters the party is now set to visit Ocalan again as soon as Jan. 15 in his prison on northwest Türkiye's Imrali island, where the 75-year-old has been held since 1999. They expect that meeting to yield a concrete plan for peace talks.
"We expect the process to take shape and a clear roadmap to be determined to establish the legal framework in the second meeting with Ocalan," DEM Party parliamentary group deputy chair Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit told Reuters. DEM is the third-largest party in parliament.
It was unclear what Ocalan would seek in any deal but DEM quoted him as referring to efforts for a "democratic transformation" in Türkiye. Kurds have long sought more political and cultural rights, and economic support. DEM also demands Ocalan's release. The dynamics of any peace process have been transformed by the toppling of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, leaving Syrian Kurdish forces on the back foot with Türkiye-backed forces ranged against them and the new rulers in Damascus friendly with Ankara. Türkiye has warned it could mount a cross-border military offensive into northern Syria against the Kurdish YPG militia unless they disband. It says they are terrorists and part of the PKK but they are also allied with the United States in the fight against ISIS, complicating the issue further.
For now it is unclear how the fall of Assad could affect the prospects of the PKK laying down arms. A leading PKK figure indicated in an interview this week that the group supported Ocalan's efforts but did not comment on the disarmament issue. The leader of the Syrian Kurdish forces has proposed that foreign fighters, including from the PKK, would leave Syria as part of a deal with Türkiye to avoid further conflict in the country.
"POINTING GUNS AND TALKING PEACE"
Kocyigit said that managing a peace process in Türkiye against this background was the biggest test for Ankara.
"You cannot point guns at the Kurds in (Syria's) Kobani and talk about peace in Türkiye," she said. "The Kurdish issue is a complex issue. It should be addressed not only with Türkiye's internal dynamics but also with its international dimensions."
Türkiye should accept that Kurds have a say in the future of Syria, she added.
Ankara has said little about the talks with Ocalan, launched after a proposal by Erdogan's main ally in October, but a major AKP figure spoke optimistically after meeting a DEM delegation.
"We see everyone's good-willed effort to contribute to the process," AKP's Abdullah Guler said on Tuesday, adding the goal was to resolve the issue this year. "The process ahead will lead to completely different developments that we never expected."
He did not specify what these developments were, but another AKP MP said a climate for the PKK to lay down arms may be in place by February. Asked if there could be an amnesty for PKK members, Guler said a general amnesty was not on the agenda.
The leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party, Ozgur Ozel, said a parliamentary commission should be set up with all parties to address the problems faced by Kurds.
In the southeast, Kurds are skeptical about peace prospects after past failures. That uncertainty is reflected in opinion surveys. A recent SAMER poll of some 1,400 people, conducted in the southeast and major Turkish cities, showed that only 27% of respondents expected the original call for Ocalan to end the conflict to evolve into a peace process.
The last peace talks collapsed in 2015, triggering a surge in violence and a crackdown on pro-Kurdish party members. Guler said the current process would in no way resemble those talks a decade ago, saying the situation had changed.
ERDOGAN'S STANCE IS CRUCIAL
Key to boosting confidence in the peace process would be an expression of support from Erdogan, according to DEM's Kocyigit.
"His direct confirmation that he is involved in the process would make a world of difference. If he openly expresses this support, social support would increase rapidly," she said.
Erdogan has so far kept up his hardline rhetoric against the PKK, saying after a cabinet meeting this week that "those who choose violence will be buried with their weapons" and repeating his oft-used warning of military action against Syrian Kurdish forces: "We may come suddenly one night".
Erdogan said he believed that "ultimately brotherhood, unity, togetherness and peace will win" while warning that if this path is blocked, "we will not hesitate to use the iron fist of our state wrapped in a velvet glove."
The importance of Erdogan's comments was also stressed by Yuksel Genc, coordinator of the Diyarbakir-based pollster SAMER.
"The harsh rhetoric of Erdogan and his circle is preventing a revival of feelings of trust in the new process (among Kurds) on the street," she said, noting concerns among many Kurds about what would happen to Kurds in Syria. Domestically, Ankara has signaled a will to deal with the Kurdish issue, unveiling last month a $14 billion development plan aimed at reducing the economic gap between the southeast and the rest of Türkiye.
An end to conflict would be widely welcomed across Türkiye, but the government faces a balancing act given the widespread enmity among most Turks towards Ocalan and the PKK after four decades of bloodshed, with many opposing peace talks.
"I definitely do not support it. I am not in favor of such bargaining or talks. I consider this as a disrespect to our martyrs and their families," Mehmet Naci Armagan, who works in the tourism sector, said in Istanbul.

Most Viewed

 
 
Features

Why Greenland? Remote but Resource-Rich Island Occupies a Key Position in a Warming World

Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)
Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)
TT
TT

Why Greenland? Remote but Resource-Rich Island Occupies a Key Position in a Warming World

Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)
Large icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland, on Aug. 16, 2019. (AP)

Remote, icy and mostly pristine, Greenland plays an outsized role in the daily weather experienced by billions of people and in the climate changes taking shape all over the planet.

Greenland is where climate change, scarce resources, tense geopolitics and new trade patterns all intersect, said Ohio University security and environment professor Geoff Dabelko.

The world's largest island is now "central to the geopolitical, geoeconomic competition in many ways," partly because of climate change, Dabelko said.

Since his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally and a founding member of NATO. It is also home to a large US military base.

Why is Greenland coveted? Think of Greenland as an open refrigerator door or thermostat for a warming world, and it's in a region that is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe, said New York University climate scientist David Holland.

Locked inside are valuable rare earth minerals needed for telecommunications, as well as uranium, billions of untapped barrels of oil and a vast supply of natural gas that used to be inaccessible but is becoming less so.

Many of the same minerals are currently being supplied mostly by China, so other countries such as the United States are interested, Dabelko said. Three years ago, the Denmark government suspended oil development offshore from the territory of 57,000 people.

But more than the oil, gas or minerals, there's ice — a "ridiculous" amount, said climate scientist Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine.

If that ice melts, it would reshape coastlines across the globe and potentially shift weather patterns in such a dramatic manner that the threat was the basis of a Hollywood disaster movie. Greenland holds enough ice that if it all melts, the world's seas would rise by 24 feet (7.4 meters). Nearly a foot of that is so-called zombie ice, already doomed to melt no matter what happens, a 2022 study found.

Since 1992, Greenland has lost about 182 billion tons (169 billion metric tons) of ice each year, with losses hitting 489 billion tons a year (444 billion metric tons) in 2019.

Greenland will be "a key focus point" through the 21st century because of the effect its melting ice sheet will have on sea levels, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. "It will likely become a bigger contributor in the future."

That impact is "perhaps unstoppable," NYU's Holland said.

Are other climate factors at play? Greenland also serves as the engine and on/off switch for a key ocean current that influences Earth's climate in many ways, including hurricane and winter storm activity. It's called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, and it's slowing down because more fresh water is being dumped into the ocean by melting ice in Greenland, Serreze said.

A shutdown of the AMOC conveyor belt is a much-feared climate tipping point that could plunge Europe and parts of North America into prolonged freezes, a scenario depicted in the 2004 movie "The Day After Tomorrow."

"If this global current system were to slow substantially or even collapse altogether — as we know it has done in the past — normal temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe would change drastically," said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. "Agriculture would be derailed, ecosystems would crash, and ‘normal’ weather would be a thing of the past."

Greenland is also changing color as it melts from the white of ice, which reflects sunlight, heat and energy away from the planet, to the blue and green of the ocean and land, which absorb much more energy, Holland said.

Greenland plays a role in the dramatic freeze that two-thirds of the United States is currently experiencing. And back in 2012, weather patterns over Greenland helped steer Superstorm Sandy into New York and New Jersey, according to winter weather expert Judah Cohen of the private firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research.

Because of Greenland's mountains of ice, it also changes patterns in the jet stream, which brings storms across the globe and dictates daily weather. Often, especially in winter, a blocking system of high pressure off Greenland causes Arctic air to plunge to the west and east, smacking North America and Europe, Cohen said.

Why is Greenland's location so important? Because it straddles the Arctic circle between the United States, Russia and Europe, Greenland is a geopolitical prize that the US and others have eyed for more than 150 years. It's even more valuable as the Arctic opens up more to shipping and trade.

None of that takes into consideration the unique look of the ice-covered island that has some of the Earth's oldest rocks.

"I see it as insanely beautiful. It's eye-watering to be there," said Holland, who has conducted research on the ice more than 30 times since 2007. "Pieces of ice the size of the Empire State Building are just crumbling off cliffs and crashing into the ocean. And also, the beautiful wildlife, all the seals and the killer whales. It’s just breathtaking."