Abdullah Öcalan assessed the period following his Call for Peace and a Democratic Society on 27 February 2025 in a message he sent to the Conference on Peace and Democratic Integration held in London. Stating that the call had been embraced by the PKK movement, democratic politics, the parties represented in the TBMM and Turkish society, Öcalan described the discussions on international experience and the Kurdish perspective at the conference as their practical counterpart.
According to Öcalan, peace cannot be achieved merely by silencing weapons or enacting a single law; the lasting goal is to build a democratic society through political, legal, institutional and social transformation. Arguing that Kurdish-Turkish, Kurdish-Persian and Kurdish-Arab relations can be renewed through democratic integration rather than separation, Öcalan defined integration as the opposite of assimilation and as voluntary participation in a democratic republic based on collective rights. He said separatist solutions were incompatible with a geography where peoples live intertwined.
Claiming that the PKK had completed its historical mission by proving the existence of the Kurds, Öcalan described its dissolution as a transition to a new phase. He emphasized that weapons should not be sanctified and that words, law and organized society should be given prominence.
Why it matters
The message shows that the discussion is being conducted not only within the framework of ending the armed conflict, but also around how Turkey’s political and social order will be reshaped. This approach makes the parties represented in the TBMM and the sphere of democratic politics direct parties to the process, while also bringing the legal and institutional dimension of the solution to the fore. Defining integration on the basis of collective rights and voluntary participation indicates that how different communities live together has become central to the discussion. The emphasis on words, law and organized society instead of weapons in connection with the dissolution of the PKK brings to the fore the question of which means will be used to establish the political ground from this point onward. What remains open is how these principles will be translated into concrete legal and institutional arrangements.
Background
Öcalan is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 5 reports mentioning this name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated September 16, 2026.