The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party has issued a landmark statement following the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’s 12th Congress, calling the event a “historic threshold” and a rare opportunity to end decades of conflict.
In the declaration titled “A Historic Threshold: A New Dawn of Peace and Brotherhood,” the DEM Party stated:
“Today, we bear historic witness to one of the most critical thresholds in Turkey’s recent history. With the PKK’s historic congress decisions, we are taking one step closer from fifty years of conflict towards the horizon of peace.”
The party paid tribute to all lives lost in the long-standing conflict, emphasising that pain knows no ethnicity, language, or religion, and that the tears of Turks, Kurds, Circassians, Arabs, Alevis, and Sunnis alike have blended in a shared sea of sorrow. The DEM Party vowed to hold this collective grief as a sacred trust in building a shared future.
Crucially, the DEM Party stressed that now is the time to prioritise a collective will for equal and joint living, democratic politics, and universal law. “No more youth should fall, neither on the mountains nor in the cities,” the statement read, adding that the voice of democracy and social reconciliation must rise over weapons, denial, and anger.
The statement called on the Turkish Parliament (TBMM) and all democratic institutions to take responsibility, warning that the task of building social peace is too sacred to be overshadowed by political calculations. The party urged the creation of a legal and institutional framework to transform this historic step into permanent peace.
The DEM Party also extended thanks to imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan for his historical role in the process, as well as to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, and main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel, alongside all political figures who have positively contributed to this moment.
Highlighting that this is not an end but a new beginning, the DEM Party concluded by remembering Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a beloved comrade devoted to peace and brotherhood, pledging: “We will never avoid confronting the truth, nor allow any act or rhetoric to wound the spirits of those we have lost or block the road to peace. We will be the unwavering defenders and carriers of equal citizenship, democratic politics, and peace.”
