The timing could not have been worse. In late April 2026, Turkiye’s parliament formally published its recommendations on how to advance the country’s Turkiye-PKK peace process, a four-decade conflict centered at grid reference 36S WC 33841 17208 (39.9208N, 32.8541E) in the Turkish capital Ankara, where legislators had worked for months on a roadmap for peace with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Within two weeks, the Iran war erupted, reshaping the entire Middle East and injecting fresh uncertainty into a process that had already been fragile.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organisation by Turkiye, the United States, and the European Union, had been moving toward dissolution since its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan called on the group in February 2025 to end armed struggle. The PKK staged a symbolic weapons-burning ceremony near Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq, at approximately grid reference 38S MD 46150 93440 (35.5573N, 45.4347E), and later announced withdrawal of fighters from key locations inside Turkiye to Iraq. A Turkish parliamentary committee had recommended legislative reforms including the reintegration of PKK members who renounce violence.

Then the Iran war changed the calculation on both sides. According to interviews conducted by Reuters with Turkish officials, lawmakers, and representatives of the northern Iraq-based PKK, both Ankara and the PKK have now dug in. Each side is watching the war’s fallout and refusing to take the next step forward.

Turkiye moved immediately when the Iran war threatened to draw Kurdish militant factions into a broader conflict. According to a Turkish government official, Ankara played a key role in quashing a short-lived proposal, originating jointly from Washington and Tel Aviv, to back a Kurdish militant ground invasion of Iran launching from Iraqi territory near Baghdad, at grid reference 38S LD 51200 68810 (33.3152N, 44.3661E). The exact nature of Turkiye’s intervention has not been independently confirmed by Strategy Battles, but it aligns with Ankara’s long-standing position that Kurdish armed mobilisation in the region represents a direct threat to Turkish security.

Turkiye has since warned publicly that it is closely monitoring Kurdish militant groups across Iran and Iraq, including factions historically linked to the PKK. The concern in Ankara is not abstract: a war that empowers or mobilises Kurdish fighters anywhere in the region risks inflaming the domestic political situation that the peace process was designed to resolve.

In late April, the pro-government newspaper Turkiye Gazetesi reported that Turkiye’s intelligence chief had briefed ruling AKP party members, presenting evidence that the PKK had taken no further disarmament steps beyond that symbolic weapons-burning ceremony the previous summer. The intelligence presentation confirmed what Ankara had suspected: the peace process had entered a holding pattern well before the Iran war provided either side with a convenient excuse to pause.

Pro-Kurdish DEM Party lawmakers have criticised the government’s cautious steps toward PKK peace. Photo: Arab News.

From the PKK’s mountain headquarters in the Qandil range, at grid reference 38S MD 10550 07740 (36.8167N, 45.0667E), senior commander Murat Karayilan delivered a blunt assessment to the PKK-linked Firat News Agency. Karayilan said the peace process had been effectively frozen, and placed responsibility squarely on Ankara for failing to deliver the legislative steps it had promised. He said his movement had fulfilled its responsibilities, including declaring a ceasefire, ending armed struggle, and staging a disarmament ceremony, but that the Turkish government had not introduced the legislation that ruling party officials had said would come in April.

The PKK’s internal mandate on disarmament carries a significant condition: Karayilan said the group’s congress had approved laying down arms only on the condition that Ocalan personally supervise the process while free. With Ocalan still imprisoned, that mandate cannot be executed regardless of what happens in Ankara. The PKK argues, therefore, that Ankara must first release Ocalan and pass legal protections for former fighters before disarmament can proceed. Ankara insists the PKK must fully disarm first. That deadlock predates the Iran war; the conflict has simply given both sides more reasons not to move.

The Iran war has added a concrete operational concern to the PKK’s political reluctance. Karayilan said it would be irrational to disarm without legal guarantees at a time when the region is at war, with drones and missiles flying overhead. This was not rhetorical: a Kurdish ground invasion of Iran, had it proceeded, would have drawn the PKK’s regional affiliates into an active conflict zone. Even without that specific plan, the broader war has created precisely the kind of destabilised regional environment in which an unarmed former militant organisation would be most vulnerable.

On the Turkish side, senior lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party have grown increasingly frustrated. Three months after a parliamentary commission issued its formal recommendations, not a single piece of legislation has been introduced. The commission’s roadmap had called for legal reintegration of PKK members who renounce violence, tied to verified disarmament. That sequencing, legislation conditional on verified surrender of weapons, is precisely what the PKK refuses to accept.

Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, a senior DEM Party lawmaker, described what both sides acknowledge privately: there is a pause, though not an outright halt. She said Ankara’s demand for full disarmament before legislative action is unrealistic, and that the government has given no clear explanation for why it has delayed the promised democratic reforms. Her assessment was pointed: she suggested Ankara may be deliberately waiting to see how the Iran war and its broader regional fallout develop before committing to any irreversible domestic political steps.

Erdogan has publicly dismissed pessimism about the process, insisting in speeches to AKP legislators that the peace efforts are progressing positively and are disconnected from domestic politics. A Turkish presidency spokesperson declined to elaborate beyond citing those speeches. But the absence of concrete action speaks louder than the rhetoric. The April deadline for legislation, which AKP officials themselves had set, passed without a bill being introduced.

The political stakes for Erdogan are considerable. Turkiye could hold new elections as early as next year, and Kurdish voters, the ethnic minority that the peace process is most directly designed to win over, could be decisive. Yet opinion polling suggests those voters are losing confidence that peace will be achieved. A Konda Barometer survey from December 2025 found that 79 percent of Turkish respondents believe the state was wrong to engage with Ocalan, including 62 percent of Erdogan’s own AKP voters. If that sentiment hardens, the political calculus for continuing the process in a visible, legislative way becomes more complicated.

Adding to the pressure from an unexpected direction, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, the nationalist coalition partner whose call for PKK engagement originally launched this peace process, said last week that Ocalan should be granted an official role to get things back on track. The government has not responded. The suggestion is notable because it comes from the nationalist camp rather than the Kurdish political community, yet Ankara’s silence on it underlines how little appetite there appears to be for any visible forward movement before the regional picture becomes clearer.

The collapse of the previous 2013 to 2015 peace effort set the stage for some of the deadliest fighting of the entire four-decade conflict. Both sides are aware of that history. The question now is whether the Iran war, which has injected new instability into a region already under pressure, provides cover for both sides to maintain their current positions until conditions shift, or whether it becomes the trigger for a deeper breakdown that is much harder to reverse.

A PKK source called Turkiye’s earlier approval of the peace roadmap an important step, but subsequent momentum has stalled. Photo: Arab News.