EditTurkey’s scrambled alignments: the PKK dissolution law and the politics of partial amnesty
The government needs Kurdish MPs in the next parliamentary and presidential elections, if it wants to enter the race again with its only real electoral asset, President Erdoğan
A conditional deal offering suspended sentences in exchange for the group’s full disarmament has united Erdoğan’s bloc with the Kurdish DEM Party while splitting opposition parties, nationalists, and even the PKK itself, exposing uneasy hopes for democratization against the risk of propping up authoritarian continuity, Günter Seufert writes.
Günter Seufert is the former Founding Director of the Centre for Applied Turkish Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. He wrote this op-ed in personal capacity.
Turkey’s democrats are in a state of utter confusion these days. But staunch Turkish and Kurdish nationalists, who have little regard for democracy, are also divided within their own ranks. The reason is the law on the dissolution and disarmament of the PKK and on a limited amnesty for members of the organization, as well as for the many people convicted of supporting a terrorist organization solely on the basis of expressing an opinion.
The extent to which the “Law on National Solidarity and Strengthening Social Cohesion” – its official title – has scrambled the usual political alignments became clear when it was passed in parliament on 10 August 2026. The measure was supported unanimously by the governing bloc of Erdoğan’s national-religious AKP and the far-right MHP, together with the left-wing Kurdish DEM Party, which the government had for decades described as the PKK’s mouthpiece. Smaller religious-conservative and socialist parties that regard themselves as part of the opposition also backed the law. The two larger centre-left opposition parties, the CHP and the Yeni Party, split into supporters and opponents of the new legislation. The nationalist İYİ Party and the religious-conservative YRP rejected the law unanimously. Yet the PKK leadership in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq and the Kurdish diaspora also came out against it. Whether Islamist conservatism, Turkish or Kurdish nationalism, or secular liberalism: supporters of all these ideologies populated both camps.
Turkish parliament passes landmark law to advance PKK peace process
The new law promises suspended sentences on probation to those accused or convicted of membership in, or support for, the PKK. Homicide and sexual offences are excluded. The law can only be applied once Turkey’s National Security Council – an institution comprising political leaders, the military and intelligence services – has determined that the PKK has fully dissolved itself and surrendered or destroyed its weapons. Only then may defendants and convicts apply for a suspension of their sentences and, following an appropriate court ruling, hope for proceedings to be discontinued or for release from prison.
Partial amnesty in exchange for dissolution and disarmament—that is the deal. Too little, say the PKK in its military camps in northern Iraq and many Kurds in the European diaspora. What about resolving the Kurdish question, cultural equality, the right to mother-tongue education, at least local self-government, and reform of the notorious anti-terrorism criminal law? Too little, say large parts of the centre-left opposition as well. How can terrorists go unpunished while elected mayors, liberal academics, journalists and human-rights defenders are in prison as a result of political trials? Too much, say Turkish nationalists, who reject any reduction in punishment for “terrorists.” They additionally fear that the government has entered into a bargain with the Kurdish DEM Party and promised it reforms following the PKK’s disarmament. Turkish nationalists already see first signs of the partition – and subsequent downfall – of the Republic of Turkey.
In fact, the leadership of the Kurdish party hopes for later concessions from the Turkish government. The government needs Kurdish MPs in the next parliamentary and presidential elections, if it wants to enter the race again with its only real electoral asset, President R. Tayyip Erdoğan. Having already served two terms, Erdoğan can run again only if three fifths of the entire parliament vote to hold early elections, or if it initiates a constitutional amendment. That would be Deal No. 2: propping up a severely weakened government and consolidating an authoritarian regime in exchange for greater rights for Kurds. It is no surprise that many who voted for the new law are deeply uneasy about it.
Why did they vote for it nonetheless? They hope that the AKP’s strategy will fail and that the end of the PKK will deprive the state of its central justification for authoritarian policies. Indeed, for 46 years now, the Turkish state has used the Kurdish question and the PKK to curtail democracy. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Kurdish question enabled the Turkish military to place elected governments under tutelage one after another. In matters of security and foreign policy, the generals ultimately called the shots. Later, the Kurdish question became a vehicle for R. Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule. In 2015, he terminated a promising reconciliation process with the Kurds because it cost him votes in the elections and deprived him of an absolute parliamentary majority.
Selahattin Demirtaş, then co-chair of the Kurdish party, in 2015 refused a deal of the kind now being contemplated. “We Kurds will not make you president again,” Demirtaş told Erdoğan. He did not call on Kurds to vote for the AKP, which was already pursuing authoritarian policies at the time. In retrospect, this was a mistake: Demirtaş positioned himself against the government from which he sought greater rights for Kurds. In 2016, he was imprisoned following a political trial. Today, Demirtaş calls for support for the government. The Kurdish question can be resolved only through democratization – or through support for the government. Democratization, however, is in poor shape these days.
Caption: The Parliament approved on 10 August a legal framework for the disarmament and reintegration of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a key step toward ending a decades-long conflict [@berwarnews on X]
Updated: August 18, 2026 - 06:23
