Ankara, Turkey. Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party said the government had no excuses left to delay a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after a landmark integration deal was reached in neighbouring Syria.
DEM Party cites Syria agreement as removing obstacle
On Sunday in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus, a move Ankara had long sought as integral to its own peace effort with the PKK.
“For more than a year, the government has presented the SDF’s integration with Damascus as the biggest obstacle to the process,” DEM Party co-leader Tuncer Bakirhan told Reuters in some of the party’s first public comments on the deal in Syria.
“The government will no longer have any excuses left. Now it is the government’s turn to take concrete steps,” he said.
Warning against linking Syria developments to Turkey process
Bakirhan cautioned President Tayyip Erdogan’s government against concluding that the rolling back of Kurdish territorial gains in Syria negated the need for a peace process in Turkey.
“If the government calculates that ‘we have weakened the Kurds in Syria, so there is no longer a need for a process in Turkey,’ it would be making a historic mistake,” he said.
Officials say deal could advance talks; Erdogan urges swift integration
Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq. Erdogan urged swift integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s armed forces.
Background on Turkey’s role in Syria and US involvement
Turkey, the strongest foreign backer of Damascus, has since 2016 repeatedly sent forces into northern Syria to curb the gains of the SDF, which after the 2011–2024 civil war had controlled more than a quarter of Syria while fighting Islamic State with strong US backing.
The United States has built close ties with Damascus over the last year and was closely involved in mediation between it and the SDF toward the deal.
Call for recognition of Kurdish rights
Bakirhan said progress required recognition of Kurdish rights on both sides of the border.
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