A new round of divide and rule strategy is creating a wedge between the Kurdish and Turkish opposition blocs, as President Erdoğan seeks to secure his regime.
Turkey is currently facing two contradictory and interrelated political processes: seemingly promising peace negotiations between the state and the PKK, and a determined drive by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to crush the main opposition party, the CHP.
The dominant view among the researchers has underscored that the Kurdish question can only be solved within a larger democratization framework, thus making the ongoing process highly uncertain. Due to these highly contradictory tendencies, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that we are witnessing a new round of divide and rule strategy by President Erdogan – creating a wedge between the Kurdish and Turkish opposition blocs to secure his own rule.
From the founding of the Republic until the 1990s, the Turkish state sought to manage the Kurdish question through assimilation and repression, both domestically and in the region. While this approach maintained control for decades, the rise of Kurdish political and military mobilization eventually rendered it unsustainable. However, the early 2000’s marked a new phase in the state’s approach under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) rule.
Sociologist Mesut Yeğen explains that after coming to power in 2002, the AKP initially maintained the traditional repressive policies toward the Kurdish question but introduced small reforms like lifting the emergency rule and easing restrictions on the Kurdish language. Although then-Prime Minister Erdoğan made a historic speech in 2005 promising a democratic solution, deeper recognition of Kurdish identity was limited, and tensions quickly resurfaced.
During this period, pro-Kurdish parties like HADEP and DTP gained regional strength, but it was with the founding of Peoples’ Democracy Party (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, HDP) that the Kurdish movement moved toward building broader, leftist alliances and became a key national opposition force. It was within this evolving political landscape that the HDP emerged as a new force.
The Rise of the HDP
Under the leadership of Selahattin Demirtaş, HDP embraced a pluralist and rights-based agenda, aiming to represent not only Kurds and other marginalized communities but also progressive Turks through democratic reforms and decentralization. According to a recent study by Matthew Whiting and Zeynep Kaya HDP draws inspiration from socialist ideas of “radical democracy” (a political notion that emphasizes grassroots participation and minority rights) and PKK-leader Abdullah Öcalan’s concept of democratic confederalism. Based on this, the HDP positioned itself as a challenger to both the AKP and Turkey’s long-standing one-nation model, redefining the meaning of democracy and political representation in the country.
As Whiting and Kaya further explain although initially open to cooperating with the AKP during the peace process, the HDP later distanced itself as Erdoğan’s government grew increasingly authoritarian. The HDP’s electoral strategy, especially after 2014, aimed to broaden its base beyond Kurdish voters by appealing to secular, liberal, and urban constituencies across Turkey.
While the HDP has emerged as a key advocate for radical democracy and minority rights in Turkey, its ambiguous relationship with the PKK has consistently undermined its democratic credibility.
This strategy paid off in the June 2015 elections when the HDP not only surpassed the 10% electoral threshold but also secured 13% of the national vote, significantly influencing the balance of power in Turkish politics and marking a milestone for pro-Kurdish representation at the national level.
Matthew Whiting & Zeynep Kaya note that while the HDP has emerged as a key advocate for radical democracy and minority rights in Turkey, its ambiguous relationship with the PKK has consistently undermined its democratic credibility. Despite officially rejecting ties to the PKK, symbolic connections and local-level controversies, particularly during the 2015–16 conflict, have fueled state repression and public distrust, limiting the HDP’s broader political appeal beyond its Kurdish base.
HDP’s growing influence led to intensified state repression after the 2016 coup attempt, resulting in the arrest of many of its leaders, including Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, on terrorism-related charges. Facing the risk of closure by the Constitutional Court, HDP contested the 2023 elections through the Green Left Party (Yeşil Sol Parti), preserving its political space.
Following the elections, the movement reorganized itself under the DEM Party (Demokrasi ve Eşitlik Partisi), which now carries forward HDP’s legacy, continuing to advocate for decentralization, minority rights, gender equality, and environmental justice. In this way, DEM has become the primary representative of the Kurdish political movement within Turkey’s legal political framework.
CHP Facing the Kurdish Question
Historically, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) approached the Kurdish question through a nationalist, state-centric perspective, viewing minority demands as a threat to national unity. As Mesut Yeğen also notes later in his analysis, the Turkish state’s discourse historically marginalized Kurdish identity by framing the Kurdish issue not as an ethnic or political matter, but as a problem of “backwardness.” As the founding party of the Republic, the CHP played a central role in constructing and maintaining this state-centric narrative, which shaped its longstanding reluctance to engage with Kurdish political demands.
This rigid stance began to shift during Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s leadership, as CHP gradually recognized the legitimacy of Kurdish political actors like the HDP. Although formal alliances were avoided due to nationalist sensitivities, the strategic support of HDP voters in the 2019 local elections, which enabled CHP to win key cities like Istanbul and Ankara, underscored the growing necessity for a more inclusive and democratic approach within the party.
Turkish state’s discourse historically marginalized Kurdish identity by framing the Kurdish issue not as an ethnic or political matter, but as a problem of “backwardness.”
After Istanbul mayor, CHP’s Ekrem İmamoğlu’s arrest on 19 March 2025, public protests erupted, and discussions around a renewed Kurdish peace process gained momentum. In this context, the relationship between the CHP and the DEM Party became increasingly significant yet complicated.
While CHP leader Özgür Özel attempted to build democratic solidarity by reaching out to Kurdish actors, figures like Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş reflected the party’s strong nationalist tradition by using exclusionary rhetoric towards Kurds during public events.
Although Özel later apologized to Kurdish voters, these incidents exposed the ongoing challenge for CHP: to reconcile its nationalist-leaning base, historically close to MHP, with the need to secure Kurdish support. This tension highlights the deep structural difficulties within the party as it seeks to lead a broader democratic front.
The Evolving Agenda of the PKK
Abdullah Öcalan founded the PKK in Turkey in 1978 as a Marxist-Leninist Kurdish nationalist organization. The original goal was to create an independent Kurdish state and crush the conservative and traditional Kurdish social organization and replace it with a secular-nationalist society. The method for achieving this involved the use of violence against all representatives of the Turkish state, whether these were ethnically Turks or Kurds. The PKK’s foundational programme called for the establishing of a single united independent state called “Kurdistan”.
However, this line changed considerably in 2005 as the PKK announced that it now considered the nation-state a hindrance on the road to freedom. As explained by rural sociologist Joost Jongerden, Öcalan declared that the PKK had abandoned its objective of establishing a state and now aimed to create a network of councils as the basis of self-determination.
The PKK since the early 2000s can best be described as a party-complex that in fact comprises several parties, more specifically the sister parties in Iraq (PÇDK), Iran (PJAK) and Syria (PYD), that are all accompanied by a platform institution called the Association of Communities in Kurdistan (Koma Civakên Kurdistan, KCK), a network of village, city and regional councils.
To almost everyone’s surprise, in autumn 2024 Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) inaugurated a new “Peace process” with the PKK, calling its leader Abdullah Öcalan to come to address the Turkish parliament and declare the end of the organization, also signaling the Kurdish party HDP as a legitimate actor. This happened after a near decade of security-centred approach by the state during which not only the PKK but also HDP were repeatedly declared as treacherous separatists.
While the key message of PKK ending its armed struggle and dissolving itself was received positively and raised hopes for a brighter future, it was also obvious that there were many question marks regarding the next steps.
After a short while, it was made public that Öcalan was in fact willing to contribute, and even adhered to same narrative, emphasizing, together with Bahçeli, the Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood and the need to overcome all dichotomies in order to secure Turkey’s position in the increasingly volatile Middle East, that was in a danger of becoming the playground of “imperialist powers” – reference to the US and Israel in particular.
Finally, on 27 February 2025, the Kurdish DEM-party’s leading figures read Öcalan’s written statement before cameras in Istanbul’s Elit World Taksim Hotel, the venue crowed with Kurdish activists, representatives of NGOs, international and domestic media, and academics.
While the key message of PKK ending its armed struggle and dissolving itself was received positively and raised hopes for a brighter future, it was also obvious that there were many question marks regarding the next steps, in particular regarding the judicial process and the state’s response. In terms of Syria, PYD figures and some DEM party members were quick to argue that Öcalan’s message was about the PKK’s activity within Turkey and as such did not determine the future decisions of the Syrian branch.
A Peace Process or a Tactic of Divide and Rule?
It is not known what the PKK leadership is promised in return for laying down the arms and dissolving the organization. However, there are also some intra-PKK factors that probably play a significant role in Abdullah Öcalan’s calculations. First of all, there are some indicators that the state repression of recent years has not generated a more radical Kurdish generation as expected.
The recent public opinion polls also indicate that a significant segment of HDP voters are of the opinion that a crucial prerequisite for solving the Kurdish conflict in Turkey is the PKK laying down its arms unconditionally, that is, not after a bargaining or dialogue with the state, but as a first step. As recently underscored by Murat Yetkin in his Yetkin Report blog posts, according to a report published in November 2024 by Istanbul Ekonomi Araştırma, around 30 percent of the pro-Kurdish HDP voters share this view.
A rather bizarre process is currently shaping Turkey’s political landscape: the Erdoğan regime has embarked on a determined project of getting rid of genuine competitive politics.
Lastly, in recent years the new drones and other high-tech military equipment have enabled the Turkish Armed Forces to gain a rather dramatic upper hand in its fight against the PKK guerillas, having also been able to remove operations almost entirely beyond Turkey’s borders, to Iraq and Syria.
All in all, we argue that a rather bizarre process is currently shaping Turkey’s political landscape: the Erdoğan regime has embarked on a determined project of getting rid of genuine competitive politics, crucially aiming to restrict the political power created during the last five years by the CHP through its municipal base.
Yet at the same time, the PKK, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM, formerly HDP), and the state are seriously negotiating. The PKK has now officially declared that it has dissolved itself and ended the armed struggle against the Turkish state. The most contradictory figure in all this is PKK’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, who repeatedly speaks about the end of PKK’s armed struggle being secured by wider democratization, at the time when the suppression of the opposition has been taken to unprecedented levels.
Tülay Yılmaz is Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, and Member of the Centre for the Sociology of Democracy (CSD).
Doctor of Social Sciences Toni Alaranta is a Senior Research Fellow in the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA).
Article image: Ekrem Osmanoglu / Unsplash
