Peace, according to Turkish nationalist leader Devlet Bahçeli, “is not a bird that can fly with one wing.” In a message sent to a live television programme on Friday, he described the recent call by Abdullah Öcalan for an end to armed struggle as the first wing, calling on the Turkish side to provide the second.
Bahçeli, who heads the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), issued the statement via his party’s deputy chair during a live broadcast with pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party MP Meral Danış Beştaş. “One wing revealed itself through Öcalan’s call and the decision to dissolve [the organisation]. As a nation, we must bring both wings together to form the body,” Bahçeli stated, adding that some debates were “unnecessary” and risked derailing the goal of a peaceful Turkey without violence.
The message marked a significant rhetorical shift for Bahçeli, who has long taken a hardline stance on Kurdish issue. His earlier speech in parliament on 22 October 2024 proposed that Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), be allowed to address parliament if he declared the organisation disbanded. His latest remarks follow the PKK’s formal announcement to disband its armed structures, signalling a potentially historic turning point in Turkey’s decades-long Kurdish conflict.
