Ocalan Dissolves the PKK, with Regional Implications
2025-03-0562 view
The leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, sent a message from his prison in Türkiye on February 27, calling on PKK members to disband the movement and lay down their arms. The move will have far-reaching repercussions for PKK fighters and the conflicts they are waging in various countries, as well as for PKK-allied parties and armed groups.
First and foremost, the move could lead a major de-escalation in the PKK’s decades-long fight against Türkiye, which has classified it as a terrorist organization since the 1980s. If this happens, it would prompt Ankara to revise its defense and security strategy, long focused on confronting the PKK in the south and east.
As for Iran, the Islamic Republic has adopted a dual strategy towards PKK militants. On the one hand, it has carried out security campaigns against the group on Iranian territory, although without engaging in a direct confrontation like Türkiye. On the other hand, it supports PKK proxies in Iraq as a way of exercising leverage with Türkiye and the new Syrian government.
Iran does not appear to have yet developed a clear strategy as concerns the dissolution of the party. That is a pressing issue given speculation that some of its members may join Kurdish opposition groups operating on Iranian territory, while others could sign up with militants based in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, the KRG. This further complicates the issue for Tehran, especially if it does not coordinate with Türkiye over security arrangements following the party’s disbandment.
Iraq, for its part, may see a golden opportunity to reformulate its ties with the KRG and develop areas that had been difficult to access due to PKK activity. The shift could also ease the security burdens on Baghdad, including that of the March 2023 security agreement signed with Tehran to confront the activity of Iranian Kurdish groups operating from Iraqi territory.
As for the party’s branch in Syria—the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which leads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—its leadership has announced that it Ocalan’s message does not apply to it, as it is not part of the PKK. This move could reduce the PKK’s political losses from its dissolution, and is also an attempt to separate the political process underway in Türkiye from the political negotiations between Syria’s Kurds and the new administration in Damascus, which has close ties with the Turkish government. Either way, the announcement places the PYD in a difficult position and narrows its negotiating options.
As yet, Ocalan’s announcement has led to few practical steps, notwithstanding the move by the PKK’s Executive Committee on March 1 that it accepted the party’s dismantlement. Many questions remain over the fate of PKK militants. Will they be placed on trial, or more likely, have their status settled after they hand over their handing over their weapons—or, less likely, will they be integrated into the army?
