Turkey’s Interior Ministry conducted large-scale raids in 51 cities, including the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in the southeast, on Feb. 18, arresting 282 people for alleged ties with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The arrests stirred heated debate within Turkish society, constituting renewed pressure on the group but also sending mixed signals amid a new bid by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resolve the decades-long insurgency by the PKK and strike a peace deal that could put an end to one of the most violent conflicts in the region. The attempt at a rapprochement is the first sustained effort since the two sides tried – but failed – to reconcile in 2014. Just yesterday, the PKK’s imprisoned founder and longtime leader, Abdullah Ocalan, issued an unprecedented call from prison saying, “all groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
While Ocalan’s call on his followers was indeed a historical move and likely will influence Kurdish militant groups across the Middle East, it is still arguable whether his appeal will result in the massive surrender of the PKK and its Syrian affiliations. For example, Mazlum Kobane, the leader of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, has said that “Ocalan’s call on disarmament is not related to us.”