French Marxist philosopher Michael Löwy has said the Turkish government has failed to respond to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’s decision to end its armed struggle, warning that Kurds expect concrete guarantees before dissolving the movement during an interview with Serkan Demirel of the Fırat News Agency (ANF) on Monday.
Speaking during a recent visit to Diyarbakır (Amed), the largest Kurdish-majority city in southeastern Turkey, Löwy said Kurds remain hopeful but cautious following recent developments in the long-standing conflict.
“While speaking with my friends from the Kurdish left during my visit to Diyarbakır a few weeks ago, I saw that they have a great deal of hope in this peace process,” Löwy told ANF. “They hope it could truly mark the beginning of a new era, but at the same time, they are still waiting for tangible signs from the Erdoğan government that a real process is underway.”
The PKK, long designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, recently held a congress in which it announced its dissolution. The move came after a call by jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in solitary confinement for 25 years.
“I think they have followed Öcalan’s call. Since he was the founder, the ideologue, the historic leader, they followed his appeal,” Löwy said. “But at the same time, I think — and this is how I interpret it — they have declared their intention to end the conflict and dissolve the PKK, but of course, they are demanding certain guarantees.”
He warned that Ankara’s lack of response, combined with ongoing military operations and the continued detention of Kurdish political figures, is fuelling doubt about the sincerity of the government’s position.
“At present, there are no guarantees in sight,” Löwy said. “They complain that the Turkish government continues to bomb their region and offers them nothing apart from exile in South Africa or Sweden. Well, that’s not acceptable.”
“They want assurances that they can participate in social and political life in Turkey, and so on,” he added. “So, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
Löwy said the PKK’s decision to declare the end of its armed campaign was strategic, based on the belief that violence would no longer yield results.
“I believe they have reached this conclusion because, under the current circumstances, continuing the violence, the attacks, is unproductive and leads to nothing,” he said. “But to dissolve the organisation without any guarantees that they can continue their activities in a democratic, legal way — well, that doesn’t make much sense.”
He added: “There’s no response from the Turkish government as yet. The prisoners are still imprisoned. And that’s the reality.”
Löwy also emphasised the importance of Öcalan’s ideology in shaping the Kurdish political movement, especially its emphasis on ecology, feminism and democratic confederalism — a model being experimented with in Rojava, northern Syria.
“This has been reflected in the governance practices of municipalities led by the Kurdish left in Turkey, and especially in Rojava, in northern Syria, where we see an experiment in democratic, plurinational, decentralised confederation,” he said.
Löwy, who identifies as a libertarian Marxist, sees parallels between his own ideology and that developed by Öcalan, particularly through the influence of American thinker Murray Bookchin.
“I’m a Marxist, but I consider myself a libertarian Marxist — that is, a Marxist who believes that anarchists have a lot to offer and can be a source of inspiration,” he said.
Asked whether the Kurdish model could inspire global struggles, Löwy said: “Perhaps. At a general level, certainly… all these ideas, this entire ‘jineology’ as they call it — it seems to me that should be applied everywhere.”
