By Halil Karaveli

The reconciliation with the PKK has effectively laid the ground for a de facto alliance between the right-wing AKP-MHP bloc and the ostensibly left-wing Kurdish movement. The main opposition CHP faces a difficult task. It suffers under the crackdown of the regime, is increasingly isolated and is stigmatized as the purported enemy of the Kurds by its erstwhile, “progressive” allies. 

                                                                            Credit: PICRYL

BACKGROUND: The Republican People’s Party (CHP) has enjoyed a lead in the polls since it dethroned the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as Turkey’s leading party in the local elections in 2024. Since the election of Özgür Özel as party leader in 2023, the CHP combines an unprejudiced, inclusive stance towards conservatives with an attempt to chart a social democratic course. Just as crucially, the CHP has succeeded in appealing to Kurdish voters, notably in Istanbul, which is home to the largest concentrated Kurdish population in Turkey.

In a conversation with the Turkey Analyst in Istanbul on November 5, CHP leader Özel explained that the party’s strategy is to sway conservative voters with leftist policies that address poverty and inequality, but to do so without brandishing a leftist banner that would put off conservatives and “workers that are right-wing.”

That’s obviously a sensible strategy in a country where inequalities in wealth and income have increased dramatically during the AKP’s more than two decades in power, but where nonetheless only a minority of the population identifies as leftist. Özel recognizes that the CHP has become a pole of attraction by default as societal discontent “seeks an address.” In other countries, he noted, discontent and anger have found an address in right-wing populism and extremism. Policies must necessarily be framed in a language that speaks to all citizens. “In the fight against fascism, we need to maintain as broad an alliance as possible,” Özel stressed. Yet the prospects of maintaining -- or rather building -- such a broad democratic alliance looks increasingly unpromising in the wake of the reconciliation between the Turkish state and the Kurdish political movement.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) -- that represent the civilian and armed wings respectively of the Kurdish movement -- are ostensibly left-wing. Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the previous iteration of the pro-Kurdish party, known as the HDP, who has been imprisoned since 2016, in 2021 called on Turkey’s left-wing forces to form a “strong left bloc” to build democracy after the rule of the AKP. Demirtaş argued that democracy was going to elude Turkey in the absence of the left and “the voice of the labor.” Indeed, CHP leader Özel recognizes that the weakness of organized labor is a handicap. The last time the CHP was the leading party of Turkey, in the 1970s, it drew strength from a labor movement that organized 90 percent of the workforce. When Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power in 2003, 58 percent of the workforce was unionized; today less than 15 percent is. Removing the obstacles to unionization is going to be crucial for the future prospects of social democracy in Turkey. But more immediately, the CHP needs to retain the support of the Kurds.

Özel says that a progressive alliance – that would bring Turkish social democrats and Kurdish leftists together -- is “fine,” but that it nonetheless imports not to lose others – presumably conservatives and Turkish nationalists – “who are also oppressed.” But in any case, the Kurdish movement itself is today displaying little interest in embarking on the path that Demirtaş earlier advocated for. Demirtaş has himself since shifted course and more recently recommended that the DEM Party position itself as a third force, equidistant to the AKP and the CHP. 

Meanwhile, the reconciliation with the PKK that began a year ago, when Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the far right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), called on the PKK’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan to dissolve the militant group and in return sensationally held out the prospect of his release, has effectively laid the ground for a de facto alliance between the right-wing AKP-MHP bloc and the Kurdish movement.

In February 2025, Öcalan called on the PKK to dissolve, a call that the organization heeded in May. However, the Turkish state has so far not responded by releasing any imprisoned Kurdish politicians; on the contrary, it has ignored the recent ruling of the European Court Human Rights to release Demirtaş. Nor has the Kurdish mayors who have been removed from their posts been reinstated. CHP leader Özel points out that Erdoğan’s “potential to deceive” is significant. Özel expressed the belief that the Kurds will ultimately “not forget what they have suffered at Erdoğan’s hands” and rally to him. Indeed, according to surveys, a vast majority of the DEM Party voters would not vote to reelect Erdoğan. Yet the calculations and motives of the Kurdish leadership are an entirely different matter.

IMPLICATIONS: The priority for the Kurdish leadership – of the DEM Party and of the PKK – is the release of Öcalan, the pardon and release of all other PKK militants in Turkish prisons and the return of the PKK leadership to Turkey where they would engage in “democratic politics.” The contours of the deal between the Turkish state and the PKK are not difficult to discern: in return for Öcalan’s freedom, the Kurdish leadership will cease to be part of the opposition – which it effectively already has -- and enable the reelection of Erdoğan. Meanwhile, the co-optation of the PKK would ensure Turkish influence in northern Syria which is controlled by the PKK’s affiliates YPG/PYD.

As the crackdown on the CHP has demonstrated – 17 CHP mayors, including the party’s presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, have been incarcerated this year – Erdoğan is intent on establishing a full-blown autocracy. Democrats in Turkey have long held that the solution of the Kurdish problem would usher in full democratization. Yet it is now clear that the Kurdish leadership is pinning its hopes on a revival of some version of the old feudal deal between the Turkish state and Kurdish tribal leaders. Under it, from the 1950s to the late 1970s, Kurdish tribal leaders were by and large left socially and economically in control of the country’s Kurdish region in return for delivering the votes of their tribes to the ruling conservative parties, the AKP’s predecessors. That was the reason the PKK began as a Marxist revolutionary movement in opposition both to Kurdish feudalism and the Turkish state. Today, ironically, Öcalan seeks to re-enact the erstwhile feudal power-sharing arrangement with the state. He has a partner in the nationalist leader Bahçeli, who Öcalan recognizes as “the voice of the state.” 

In 2000 it took much persuasion by the democratic leftist Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit before Bahçeli, who then served as deputy prime minister, accepted a moratorium on the execution of Öcalan, who had been sentenced to death after he was captured in Nairobi, Kenya in February 1999 and extradited to Turkey. Today, Bahçeli goes out of his way to endow Öcalan with legitimacy. Bahçeli reverentially refers to Öcalan as the “founding leader,” in lieu of “baby slayer,” as he had until recently been called in Turkish public discourse. Bahçeli has also insisted that members of the parliamentary commission that has been set up to promote the reconciliation process visit Öcalan on his prison island İmralı. Bahçeli claimed that “visiting İmralı is not different than visiting Silivri,” the location of the prison where among others Istanbul’s mayor İmamoğlu is incarcerated, astoundingly equating the innocent political prisoners of the AKP-MHP regime with the convicted leader of a terrorist organization. 

The visit to Öcalan finally took place on November 24, with parliamentarians from AKP, MHP and DEM Party, but not CHP, participating. The decision of the CHP not to participate in what amounted to an endeavor to bestow legitimacy on Öcalan, who is widely detested in Turkish society, drew the ire of the DEM Party and the PKK. The CHP argues that the elevation of Öcalan to the official representative of the Kurds jeopardizes the reconciliation process, rendering it difficult to secure public consent for steps that promote Turkish-Kurdish equality. Public support for the process has fallen from 80 percent in September to under 60 percent. DEM Party representatives have put the blame on Turkish nationalist media outlets. Pervin Buldan, a leading spokesperson of the party, reported that “Öcalan is unhappy with the media,” and called on the AKP government to take action against critics in the media, pointing out that the government enjoys discretionary power, as it controls the judiciary.

CONCLUSIONS: In a new party program, the CHP promises to promulgate the right to education in the mother tongue and to apply the European charter of local self-government. Both promises meet the demands of the Kurdish political movement. Yet Kurdish representatives slammed the CHP as the enemy of the Kurds. Tülay Hatimoğulları, co-chair of the DEM Party, accused the CHP of “reviving the codes of a century of denial and annihilation.” Murat Karayılan, a leading PKK representative, “warned” the CHP that “it will pay a price for its mistake.” Mustafa Karasu, another PKK representative, claimed that CHP has now showed that its earlier attempts to prove that the party is “the friend of the Kurds” were “insincere.” 

CHP representatives recognize that their refusal to contribute to the elevation of Öcalan is bound to cost them crucial support among Kurdish voters and that the party needs to make a sustained effort to convince the Kurds of its sincerity. Yet the CHP faces a difficult task. It suffers under the crackdown of Erdoğan, is increasingly isolated and is stigmatized as the purported enemy of the Kurds by its erstwhile, “progressive” allies. 

“Why should it be impossible for those who call for equality and fraternity to win a majority? Why can’t we come together and form a democratic bloc? Are we condemned to a fascist bloc?” the Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş asked in November 2016, days before he was arrested. It’s the self-professed Kurdish democrats who owe the answer to those questions today.

AUTHOR'S BIO: Halil Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and the Editor of the Turkey Analyst. He is the author of Why Turkey is Authoritarian: From Atatürk to Erdogan (Pluto Press)

By Emil Avdaliani

The US involvement in the South Caucasus means that Washington will become increasingly dependent on Turkey to ensure the long-term viability of the corridor through Armenia. The TRIPP not only invites direct American economic and business presence in the South Caucasus but also expands Turkey’s role in the region. The TRIPP agreement will advance Ankara’s commercial and political interests in the South Caucasus and sideline Iran and to a certain extent Russia. The agreement also opens the way for the restoration of ties between Ankara and Yerevan. But the slow progress of the ongoing Armenia-Turkey talks once again demonstrates that the key to normalization lies in a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

                                                                               Credit: PICRYL

BACKGROUND: On August 8 in Washington D.C., Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a landmark arrangement. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a Joint Declaration on Future Relations, pledging to “chart a bright future not bound by past conflict, consistent with the UN Charter.” The historic document stated that the two countries no longer regard each other as enemies. A core component of the Washington deal is the TRIPP, Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, which envisions a transit and trade corridor through Armenia’s southern territory to link Azerbaijan proper with the Nakhchivan enclave. The United States is granted a 99-year mandate to oversee the creation and operation of the transit corridor across Armenian territory.  

For Turkey, the TRIPP offers an opportunity to diversify its commercial routes across the South Caucasus. Until now, Turkey enjoyed only one transit route to the Caspian Sea. The corridor through Georgia built in the 1990s, expanded in the 2000s and consisting of roads, railways and pipelines has been an important factor in strengthening Ankara’s relations with Tbilisi. The Georgia route has boomed since February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and the north Eurasian route linking China with the EU became less secure. As a viable alternative, the Middle Corridor running from Turkey and Georgia to Central Asia has become more attractive for global transport companies and actors such as the EU and China.

Yet reliance on one route is fraught with risks. The fickle geopolitical situation in the South Caucasus calls for developing alternatives and the route through Armenia’s southern territory is attractive to Ankara and Baku. Indeed, right after the TRIPP announcement, the Turkish side unveiled the start of construction of the Kars-Iğdır-Aralyk-Dilucu railway line, which will become a key element of the corridor. The project’s cost is up to €2.4 billion and is set to serve as yet another link for China-EU trade. More importantly, it will connect Turkey with the Central Asian market and sideline its competitors in the South Caucasus – Russia and Iran.

IMPLICATIONS: The TRIPP lands Russia and Iran in an uncomfortable position. Iran’s concerns are based on the notion that any plan that might alter regional borders or limit Armenia’s sovereignty would by default weaken the Islamic Republic’s influence in the South Caucasus. Since 2020, when Azerbaijan recovered most of its lost territories, Tehran has actively resisted the projects advanced by Baku which would see the so-called Zangezur Corridor (in Armenia referred to as “corridor” or “Syunik corridor”) running through Armenia’s southernmost territory of Syunik. Iran considers the short border with Armenia as an only reliable land link into the South Caucasus, free of Turkish-Azerbaijani influence. The route to Armenia is also a corridor for Iran to access Georgia’s Black Sea ports and from there the European market.

The TRIPP also benefits Turkey since it strips Iran of a geopolitical leverage it has had over Azerbaijan, namely, the Aras corridor which connects Azerbaijan proper with its exclave of Nakhichevan via Iran’s northern territory. In 2023, Baku and Tehran reached an agreement to expand the infrastructure along the route which envisioned a transit flow of 15 million tons of cargo by the end of this decade. The corridor stretching for 107 km though is not seen by Iran as a mere transit of goods and passengers through its territory. In fact, Tehran perceives the route as an important instrument for retaining influence in the South Caucasus and for checking Turkey’s growing role.

Russia’s position in the South Caucasus meanwhile is changing. Russia is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, remains heavily sanctioned by Western countries and the dialogue with the United States has not yielded any results; on the contrary, President Donald Trump now seeks to bring the war to an end by stepping up the military pressure on Russia. In this wider context, Moscow’s relations with Azerbaijan, Turkey’s key ally, are undergoing structural shifts which began in late 2024 when an Azerbaijani civilian plane was shot down by Russian air defense batteries over the North Caucasus. The incident however only served as a pretext, overshadowing the much deeper differences between Baku and Moscow. With the return of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan has become more self-reliant in pursuing its foreign policy aims. Meanwhile, Russia’s relations with its major ally in the region, Armenia, are also changing.

Discontent with how Russia acted in 2020 and 2023 when Nagorno-Karabakh fell, Yerevan began to rapidly diversify its foreign policy by developing multiple strategic partnerships with actors ranging from the US to China. These two major developments elevate the role that the Turkey-Azerbaijan axis plays in the region and paved the way for the rapprochement between Ankara and Yerevan.

Given the fact that the TRIPP should facilitate the reaching of a Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal, it will also, in turn, advance the ongoing rapprochement process between Yerevan and Ankara. Initiated in the aftermath of the second Nagorno-Karabakh War, the dialogue between Turkey and Armenia initially centered on the potential opening of the common border closed since 1990s when the first war over Nagorno-Karabakh raged and Ankara supported Baku. Eventually, the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement began to cover the restoration of diplomatic ties. The two sides held a series of meetings and the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan even went to Turkey on an official visit. 

On September 12, a meeting between Armenia and Turkey's special representatives for the normalization of relations, Ruben Rubinyan and Serdar Kılıç, took place in Yerevan. The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to continuing the process of dialogue and cooperation, emphasizing its importance for the entire region. Yet, the meeting did not yield any major progress for Yerevan, as it seemed to have served to clarify the details of Armenia’s compliance with Baku and Ankara’s demands. Just prior to the meeting, the Armenian side announced it would drop featuring the Mount Ararat on the country’s border crossing stamps. This is not the first time that Armenia did so. In 2008, when a major normalization effort between Ankara and Yerevan was underway, the Armenian Football Federation briefly removed the depiction of the Mountain Ararat from its logo but the decision was swiftly rescinded.

The slow progress of the ongoing Armenia-Turkey talks once again shows that the key to normalization lies in a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey, time and again, has also made it clear that the final resolution of the differences between the two sides was contingent upon Yerevan and Baku reaching a comprehensive peace agreement. This involves Armenia changing the preamble of its constitution with its reference to the Nagorno-Karabakh. Another precondition seemed to have been what Baku referred to as the Zangezur Corridor.

CONCLUSION: The US involvement in the South Caucasus means that Washington will become dependent on Turkey to ensure the long-term viability of the corridor through Armenia. The TRIPP not only invites direct American economic presence in the South Caucasus but also expands Turkey’s role in the region. The losers are Iran and Russia and in response a further alignment between Tehran and Moscow can be anticipated. Both Iran and Russia prefer north-south connectivity, while Turkey and the Western countries opt for the east-west direction of railways and pipelines.

Yet, in practice, Russia and Iran have fewer tools to reverse the development of the TRIPP. Neither Tehran nor Moscow can afford any deterioration of ties with Turkey or Armenia and Azerbaijan at the time when the Islamic Republic and Russia have other pressing geopolitical issues to attend to.

Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of the Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.