Turkey’s Kurdish party presses Ankara to restart peace process

ANKARA: Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party said on Monday that the Syrian integration deal involving Kurdish forces had removed any remaining justification for Ankara to delay a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The remarks came a day after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus, a development long demanded by Turkey as part of its security concerns along the border.

DEM Party co-leader Tuncer Bakirhan said the Turkish government had for over a year cited the SDF’s status in Syria as the main obstacle to progress with the PKK issue.

“With this agreement, the government no longer has any excuses,” Bakirhan said, adding that it was now Ankara’s responsibility to take concrete steps toward peace.

He warned the government against assuming that reduced Kurdish influence in Syria eliminated the need for dialogue inside Turkey.

“If the government believes there is no longer a need for a peace process in Turkey because Kurds have been weakened in Syria, it would be a historic mistake,” he said.

Turkish officials earlier said the Syria deal, if fully implemented, could help advance the stalled peace efforts with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq. President Tayyip Erdogan has called for the swift integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s armed forces.

Turkey has conducted multiple military operations in northern Syria since 2016 to curb the influence of the SDF, which controlled large parts of the country during the civil war while fighting Islamic State with backing from the United States.

Bakirhan said lasting stability required recognition of Kurdish rights on both sides of the border, calling for democratic governance and guarantees of basic freedoms in both Turkey and Syria.