“The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) must hold its congress and formally disband—without any preconditions,” Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli said in Ankara on Tuesday, in one of his strongest recent statements targeting the Kurdish movement and peace efforts involving Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader.
Speaking amid ongoing regional tensions and domestic political debate, Bahçeli condemned both the PKK and recent Kurdish political coordination efforts in northeast Syria, describing them as existential threats to Turkey and the wider region.
Bahçeli’s remarks came in response to the Kurdish National Unity and Joint Position Conference held in Qamishli (Qamişlo), northeast Syria, which brought together a wide spectrum of Syrian Kurdish actors, including those aligned with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“The decisions taken at this so-called conference are part of a scripted scenario against Turkey,” Bahçeli said, accusing the event of undermining Syria’s territorial unity and of being “sponsored by the United States and France”.
He denounced the SDF’s commander, Mazloum Abdi, as a “terrorist” and demanded that Kurdish armed groups including the Peoples’ Protection Forces (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) “lay down their arms and integrate into the Syrian state according to a predetermined roadmap”. He also accused the Qamishli initiative of violating a 10 March agreement between the Syrian opposition and the Damascus government.
Turning to domestic politics, Bahçeli warned the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party against remaining silent on the Qamishli developments. “A political party in Turkey must reject the game being played in Qamishli if it is sincere,” he said, calling for consistency in DEM Party’s claim of pursuing peaceful politics.
On the subject of Mr Öcalan and İmralı Island—where the PKK leader has been imprisoned since 1999—Bahçeli reaffirmed his position against any dialogue or concessions.
“Loyalty to the 27 February İmralı call is essential,” he said, referencing a hardline nationalist view that the PKK must surrender without expecting negotiations or reforms. “Honouring the so-called leader they revere with respect and obedience is their core principle—but we reject all of it.”
Bahçeli also lashed out at the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), accusing its leader Özgür Özel of inciting division by defending a Kurdish mayor. “Saying his only crime is being Kurdish is separatism. Terrorism and our Kurdish brothers are not the same,” he said.
Calling CHP a “boiling cauldron and bleeding wound”, Bahçeli accused it of drifting away from national values and “laying dynamite at the foundations of Turkey”.
Bahçeli’s speech, filled with nationalist rhetoric and warnings of foreign interference, reaffirmed his stance against any Kurdish autonomy, dialogue with Öcalan, or peace initiatives that exclude total PKK disarmament—posing a further challenge to hopes of de-escalation in Turkey’s Kurdish question.
