Fuat Önen posted on October 15, 2025, 14:30
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, developments in the world must be considered from the perspective of a Third World War. This War has different fronts. From time to time, one of the fronts comes to the fore. But we can say this: the Indo-Pacific and Eurasian fronts of this War are the most important fronts. We also need to try to understand the Middle East and the Near East developments from the perspective of this War.
The Middle and Near East have many essential characteristics.
One of the most important is that they lie atop energy resources and energy routes. The warring sides aim to control energy resources and secure energy routes in this War.
Another feature, which is also a significant problem, is state borders—i.e., political borders—that do not align with the historical and social realities of the peoples. As long as these political borders remain, War will continue in the Middle East. In particular, we can include Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and, even if it is not a purely Middle Eastern country, Turkey. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—none of these states’ political borders are compatible with the historical and social realities of the peoples living in that geography.
The somewhat unexpected end of the Syrian War resulted in Iran’s withdrawal from the region. Although Russia has not entirely withdrawn, it can be regarded as a weakened state in the region. I assume this War will continue.
That leaves Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. Yemen is already being bombed constantly.
I think, in the not-too-distant future, the War may intensify in Iraq. The US and Israel insistently warn the Iraqi State regarding the Hashd al-Shaabi. We must also expect military operations against Iran at specific intervals.
From the perspective of the Kurdistan National Liberation Struggle, when we look at the War in the Near East and the Middle East, it is possible to say that a political environment among states conducive to the Kurdistan National Democratic Revolution has formed. Of Kurdistan’s four occupiers, Iraq and Syria have largely unraveled. However, the main colonialists and occupiers of the region are Turkey and Iran. As long as Turkey and Iran remain as they are now, it will not be possible to establish a new order or a new international system in the region because Turkey and Iran are the two important representatives of the region’s reactionary forces. In the end, I foresee that these states will also join this War.
The War will draw them in even if they do not want to participate. Therefore, both Turkey’s revolutionaries and Kurdistan’s revolutionaries must view the region and the world from a war perspective and develop their struggles from a perspective of taking power.
Political Alignments in the Middle East
The ground for the imperialist game in the Middle East is this: There were six states that Iran called the axis of resistance: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. Three of these have unraveled. What remains are Yemen and the Hashd al-Shaabi forces in Iraq. Yemen is being bombed every day by Israel and the USA; they have been neutralized.
As in nature, politics and society do not tolerate a vacuum. Who will fill the vacuum left by Iran? The answer to this question is the games being plotted. At the moment, we can speak of three leading actors who are candidates to fill this vacuum:
First, Israel and, of course, America. France is trying to take the initiative in the region; the UK is making quiet but effective interventions. Second, the Gulf countries—Saudi and Qatar—but Saudi and Qatar are also competing with each other over Syria. Qatar is closer to Turkey. The Saudi capital is the main force with specific goals over Syria and is currently financing the regime there. The third candidate is Turkey.From this angle, we can understand Turkey’s practices.
Two Different Tendencies in the United States Concerning the Middle East
Within the United States, regarding its outlook on the world and developments in the Near and Middle East, there are two different tendencies. One of them is the line represented by Trump and Tom Barrack. During his first term as president, Trump said he would withdraw from the south, that is, from Iraq and Syria.
At that time, the Pentagon and CENTCOM prevented him. At present, there is a serious internal conflict within the US state, and this internal conflict is highly relevant to our subject. As far as I can see, the Pentagon, CENTCOM, and perhaps Secretary of State Rubio are following a line closer to Israel and are resisting Trump at this point. On the other hand, Trump seems to want to resolve his problems with Russia, become more organized against China, and wage a longer-term struggle.
Erdoğan is on good terms with the Trump and Barack Obama school. Erdoğan is telling the United States through Trump: “I will handle all your affairs in the Near and Middle East. Bring your relations with Kurdish politics and Kurdistan to a level I can accept.” This is the Turkish State’s single condition.
Turkey is also ready to establish relations with Israel. It is also prepared to fulfill all the duties the US assigns in the region. However, “Syria is a multi-actor equation.”
The “İmralı Process” Turkey Has Engineered to Emerge Intact from the Middle Eastern War
Turkey’s game plan in Syria was this: Starting from the 2012–15 İmralı process, Turkey, the forces in Southern Kurdistan and Rojava, and the Muslim Brotherhood would together fight against Assad. In the 2012–15 period, because the PKK did not enter this equation and remained within the Iran–Syria equation, that project came to nothing. Later, since Turkey could not make a move to topple Assad, they tried insistently to establish relations with Assad one year before his fall. They involved Russia as an intermediary.
Since Assad said, “You are occupiers in my country; I will not meet with you unless you end the occupation,” there was no meeting between them. Therefore, the march of HTS and (al-)Julani on Damascus was not Turkey’s game plan. This was more the game plan of Western powers. In particular, the plan of the UK, the US, and Israel was realized, and HTS took Damascus.
İbrahim Kalın, Hakan Fidan, and Tayyip Erdoğan have recently insisted that “we are a regional power and an agenda-setting actor in the region.” After the collapse of the Assad regime, they also created a festive atmosphere. They said, “Our game plan has succeeded.” These are not true! In Syria, Turkey’s game plan has not been realized.
On this subject, all the statements made by the Turkish media and Turkish politicians are propaganda aimed at the domestic audience. It is not that Turkey has set a game, but it is sustaining it. Most recently, Hakan Fidan made a statement and said, “The KSD is being a spoiler.” In the same speech, he said the same about Israel: “Israel is also being a spoiler.” That means the game they designed has not succeeded. There are still severe obstacles ahead for it. The biggest obstacle is the resistance of the Kurdish nation. Unless they break this resistance, their game plans will not succeed.
The essence of the Bahçeli–Öcalan process is also the political vacuum we mentioned. They started the “İmralı Process” with the thinking: “If we do not fill this vacuum, this vacuum will swallow us as well.”
The Bahçeli–Öcalan Process Is Not Independent of Developments in the Middle East
Understanding a process and solving a problem primarily relate to how it is defined. There is no peace process. Because the İmralı process, or the Bahçeli–Öcalan process, does not claim to solve any social or political issue. The Turkish political side says this is a “terror-free Turkey process.” By terror, they mean the PKK’s armed struggle. Whereas from where we stand, what we see is that in Turkey, in Kurdistan, and even in the Near East and the Middle East, the source of terror is Turkey’s occupationist presence in the region. Turkey is waging a harsh war of occupation in three parts of Kurdistan.
To leave this out of the assessment and speak of a terror-free Turkey is pure manipulation.
Both the Turkish Ruling Politics and Öcalan, who is in the position of its spokesperson, and the DEM Party, which carries out the tasks given by Öcalan, and to some extent Kurdish parties outside the DEM Party as well, perceive this process as a “process for the PKK to lay down arms” and to a certain extent support it.
Yet the target here is not the disarmament of the weapons in Qandil. The Turkish State does not have a serious problem with the armed presence in Qandil. Besides, the PKK has not carried out a serious armed action against Turkey for 8 years. By their (the Turkish State’s) words, they are waging a “controlled war,” and for the past ten years, they have been waging a harsh war of occupation against both Southern Kurdistan and the Little South, using the armed presence in Qandil as a pretext. Therefore, it is not correct to understand this process as “the PKK laying down arms.”
Again, southern administrators and some parties in the North support this process because they understand it as the PKK laying down arms and because they are disturbed by the PKK’s armed presence. This is a very grave mistake. It is a failure to understand the Turkish State’s mind. In that case, this process tries to cover up the Turkish State’s occupationist violence and terror by saying “terror-free Turkey.”
Is a Democratic Society Possible Under the Roof of the Turkish State?
Öcalan, the DEM Party, and Qandil call this process the Peace and Democratic Society Process. First, the very concept of a democratic society is a manipulation. They have not been able to explain what they mean by a democratic society.
No society that harbors irreconcilable contradictions can be democratic. In every society, there are political sides in favor of democracy and against it. Democracy is essentially a condition of the State, a form of the State.
To speak of peace in any conflict, the parties must mutually recognize each other. Yet the Turkish State does not recognize the nation and country reality of the Kurds; if you do not recognize it, you are not in favor of peace.
This State is programmed to eliminate the nation–state reality of the Kurds. This situation is the main source of the War.
Therefore, the definition of peace and a democratic society is also wrong. My definition regarding these processes is this: “A new offensive by the Turkish State that targets all four parts of Kurdistan.” It is also possible to call this a Kurdistan Campaign of the Turkish State. What they hope to achieve from this campaign is to make Kurdish politics submit and, ideologically, to liquidate the national liberationist thought.
That is, to some extent, to disarm the Kurds intellectually. This shows that we are faced not with a peace or solution process but with a new offensive by the Turkish State. Because I think this way, I say revolutionaries must oppose this process head-on. The urgent task is to expose this process and its actors.
Within the exposure activity, we must bring organizational effort to the fore. Only thus can we neutralize this offense.
Approaching These Offensives of the Turkish State with Historical Consciousness Kurdish politics must approach all these developments with historical consciousness because Turkey is not doing this for the first time.
As you know, at the beginning of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire formed a union of forces with the Kurdish Emirates and turned into an empire expanding eastward. In other words, the union of forces forged with the Kurdish Emirates opened the lock of the Near East and the Middle East to the Ottoman Empire.
At the beginning of the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire entered a modernization process, it first moved to liquidate the Kurdish Emirates with which it had allied. Starting from 1817 and lasting until 1847, they launched a Kurdistan campaign and almost liquidated all the Emirates in Kurdistan.
Now they are acting in the same State of mind. They think, “To fill the vacuum formed in the Near and Middle East, we must integrate Kurdish politics with ourselves.”
This is the State of mind behind what Turkey does, which comes from history. For this reason, the first target of the Bahçeli–İmralı process is the Little South, Southwestern Kurdistan, which we call Rojava.
In the medium term, if the US–Israel–Iran tug-of-war continues and there is a destabilization in Iran, Eastern Kurdistan is also in the crosshairs. Therefore, we must first correctly understand this process.
This process is a political offensive, an ideological offensive. Understanding this process as such and opposing it head-on should be the duty of every Kurdistani patriot.
On the Commission Established in the Turkish Grand National Assembly for the “Terror-Free Turkey” Process
A commission has been formed in the Turkish Parliament by the parties of Turkey and “Turkeyist” parties. The Kurdish nation is not represented on this commission. No representative on this commission defends the cause of Kurdistan.
This commission thinks about Turkey’s future and tries to do good things for Turkey. The statements by the DEM Party there, such as “this commission will discuss the solution of the Kurdish question,” do not reflect reality.
Let us analyze the commission’s name: National solidarity; there can be no national solidarity and unity between Kurds and Turks. The relationship between Kurds and Turks is an international relationship. And the Kurdish nation has been the addressee of a genocidal system that the Turkish State has maintained for a hundred years. Therefore, as we understand from that “national solidarity,” everyone participating there sees themselves as “of Turkey” and as part of the Turkish nation.
Another concept is Brotherhood. Brotherhood is not a political concept. It is actually a social concept. However, after the French Revolution, it also entered political literature. Let me remind you that the basic slogan of the French Revolution was equality, liberty, and fraternity. In Turkish politics, there is no equality or liberty, and therefore, there can be no fraternity. When it suits them, they have a claim to Brotherhood. For a hundred years, there has been a nation before them that they have been trying to eliminate. For a hundred years, because they have not been able to eradicate this nation, they have approached accepting the existence of Kurds one by one. But they still reject, deny, and seek to eliminate the Kurdish nation’s reality and the Kurdistan reality. This is not Brotherhood; this is the law of enmity. If a state seeks to eliminate a people’s nation and country reality, no brotherhood can come of that.
The third concept is democracy. This was added to the commission’s name at the insistence of the CHP and the DEM Party. The CHP is on this commission to prevent the government’s assault against itself. The way to do this is to add the word democracy to the commission’s name. The DEM Party already thinks they are saying something new by putting the word democracy in front of every concept. Democratic nation, democratic homeland, democratic State… By overusing it, they have rendered this concept meaningless. There is no such thing as a democratic nation. Every nation has sides in favor of democracy and against it. Let us also look at the discourse of Democratic Modernity launched by Öcalan and accompanied by the DEM and the PKK. What you call democratic modernity is capitalist modernity; democracy is also a form of the State of the capitalist system.
“The Success of the Process”
The lock of the Bahçeli–Öcalan process will be broken—or opened—in the Little South and in Syria.
The Turkish State has already made the dominant politics of Northern Kurdistan submit. It is striving to make the Little South submit as well and become the new hegemonic power of Southern Kurdistan. If they can achieve this, the process will advance. To the extent that they cannot, this process will also come to nothing, as in 2015.
Those in Rojava are not like those in Qandil. Even if there are ideological and organizational affinities, the leaders in Rojava and the leaders in Qandil are not in the same position.
The reason is this: In Qandil, there are armed elements—some say 3,000, some say 2,500. These are professional fighters. If Öcalan gives the order and the leaders in Qandil comply, they can lay down arms and go to another country. But the situation in Rojava is not like that.
In the place they call Northeastern Syria, 8–10 million people live. When you lay down arms there, you will throw millions of people into a ring of fire. Neither can you go anywhere nor take your millions of supporters anywhere. That is why, up to now, especially the statements of Ilham Ahmed and, at times, of Mazloum Abdi, there is still resistance there.
The objective and subjective conditions to lead this process to success do not exist. After so much experience and War, the Kurdish nation will not surrender.
A Project That Cannot Be Realized in Syria: Nation-Building
There is serious competition between Saudi Arabia and Turkey in Syria. Saudi finances HTS. Turkey provides military aid and tries to give military training. Therefore, as is assumed, Turkey’s hand is not very strong in Syria. What Tom Barrack said—and later repeated by Erdoğan and (al-)Julani: “One country, one flag, one army—the Syrian Arab Republic.” This is a project that cannot be realized.
Let us approach this with historical consciousness as well. From 1919 to 1939, Syria was a French mandate, and France tried to forge a nation there. Its 20-year effort came to nothing. In the end, France withdrew from Syria.
After that, in 1960, the Ba’ath came. The Ba’ath was a political movement supported by the Soviet Union and almost all progressive public opinion worldwide. Among the Arab nationalist currents that emerged in the Arab geography in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Ba’ath was at the forefront. There was Nasser in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya. They even formed a United Arab Republic for a time. However, despite all the support of the socialist system, the Ba’ath could not build a nation in Syria. Yet ideologically, the Ba’ath was the political party closest to nation-building. We can try to understand it by drawing parallels with Kemalism. But just as Turkey has not been able to forge a nation out of this State’s citizens for 100 years, a nation has not been formed in Syria either.
HTS and (al-)Julani are a political movement far from nation-building. They are jihadists. They use Islamic references. They are not Islamist. They only use the references. HTS is a front composed of 10–12 groups.
Today, there is no state in Syria; there is a gang. This gang used to rule Idlib. They moved the government in Idlib to Damascus and said, “We have become a state.” No state structure exists, and HTS is sovereign over perhaps 20–25 percent of Syrian territory. HTS does not have sovereignty over Syria. Such a political movement and such a worldview cannot build a nation in Syria.
Moreover, HTS does not have a mass base that could form a nation. Kurds will not be HTS’s mass base. Alawi Arabs will not be a mass base. Druze, Armenians, and Syriacs will not be HTS’s mass base. What remains are Sunni Arabs. A segment of Sunni Arabs supports HTS. That is, HTS’s mass base within Sunni Arabs exists more in Hama, Idlib, and partly in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The Arabs in Damascus, the Arabs in Aleppo, and the Arabs on the coast will not be HTS’s mass base. Because the picture is like this, I do not deem it probable that a Syrian nation and the Syrian Arab Republic will be established through HTS. This project is condemned to failure.
A new and much bloodier state of War awaits Syria. Turkey cannot save Syria either because these are genocidal projects. Trying to create a nation out of a multi-national, multi-state geography is a genocidal activity.
What the Turkish State has been trying and failing to do for a hundred years is precisely this. Despite so many massacres, repression, and exploitation, if Turkey has not been able to form a nation in a century, how can HTS and (al-)Julani form a nation in Syria?
Kurdistani politics—especially in the Little South, but also in Southern Kurdistan—must prepare for War. A peaceful future does not await us.
The world is already in a state of War; an undeclared Third World War is ongoing, and the Near Eastern front, the Middle Eastern front of this War, will be much harsher. Peaceful dreams disarm Kurds intellectually. That is, by saying “the era of armed struggle is over,” Kurdistani politics, Kurdish politicians, and Kurdish intellectuals are being intellectually disarmed. The peace–brotherhood palaver in Turkey also serves this purpose.
Yet the Kurds are in a ring of fire. With its four parts, Kurdistan is the frontline country of the 3rd World War. Peace–brotherhood palaver only disarms us intellectually.
Therefore, it is not that we want War, but a war has been imposed upon us. I do not think we can avoid this War.
On Debates over an Alliance among Kurds, Israel, and Turkey
The presence of the Turkish State in Kurdistan is an occupationist and genocidal presence.
Trying to extract an alliance from this is futile. Moreover, Öcalan is not engaged in an activity representing the Kurdish nation.
Perhaps it can be said that he essentially represents his own party. Therefore, it is wrong to evaluate the Bahçeli–Öcalan process as a Kurdish–Turkish alliance, and this is not possible.
As for Israel: Israel is a state with state-mindedness and, in recent times, with imperial ambitions as well. It is entirely understandable for this State to want a Kurdish state in the Near East.
Because a possible Kurdistan State would be a buffer between Israel and Iran. Perhaps it would be a buffer between Israel and Turkey.
And Israel thinks that a Kurdistan State could weaken the front opposite it. From the perspective of realpolitik, Israel’s effort is understandable.
However, seeing this as a strategic and lasting idea is also tricky. Because for 42 years—from the establishment of the State of Israel until 1990—the Turkish State and Israel were strategic allies.
There was serious cooperation in all fields—economic, intelligence, and military. The Turkish State recognized the State of Israel one day after its establishment.
After the dissolution of the Soviets, the Turkish State perceived a threat to its own survival in the region. The Western powers, in general, and in particular Israel and the United States, said that they had plans to divide Turkey.
This led to a decade of distancing and debate between the Turkish State and the State of Israel. The AKP’s coming to power in 2002 was a US operation aimed at purging the Eurasianist faction within the Turkish military.
Between 2002 and 2013, the Turkish State under AKP rule and Israel were again strategic allies. What disrupted this was the Sisi coup in Egypt. At the beginning of the Syrian War, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey formed a bloc under US patronage and tried to overthrow the Assad regime. However, the Sisi coup shattered this bloc. Saudi Arabia, together with Israel, supported the coup. Qatar took a stance in between. Turkey continued to support Morsi. This caused the relations between Israel and the Turkish State to deteriorate again.
Before the Gaza–State of Israel war, Turkey expended great effort to mend its relations with Israel. However, after the start of this War, relations between Turkey and Israel became strained once more.
The reason I remind you of all this is this: In the coming period, a Turkey–Israel alliance may form again. At this point, both Öcalan and Erdoğan speaking of an Israeli threat is a complete distortion.
It is a lie to say that the State of Israel is a threat to Turkey. To say that the State of Israel is against the Kurdish National Movement and, in Öcalan’s words, that it would try to kill Pervin Buldan or Sırrı Süreyya Önder is as much a distortion as Erdoğan’s.
What is essentially intended by this is to prevent the Kurdish National Movement from forming certain alliances with Israel, the West, and the United States.
Moreover, neither Erdoğan and Bahçeli nor Öcalan are anti-imperialist; Erdoğan and Bahçeli are already the governing coalition of an imperialist state. Öcalan persistently proposes integration with this State. It is out of the question for someone who proposes integration with an imperialist, colonialist state to be anti-imperialist. This is a kind of psychological War, an ideological war.
Nor is this being done for the first time. There is essentially no difference between what Turkish politics said to the Kurds during the First World War and the 1919–1923 period and what they say more than a hundred years later.
Effects of the Bahçeli–Öcalan Process on Northern Kurdistan
This occupationist offensive can’t have a positive effect in Northern Kurdistan. It aims to make Kurdish politics submit and, with the palaver of democratic society, to integrate the Kurds into the Turkish/Turkey nation.
When we look at the arguments used, we see this clearly. In his call, Öcalan says that a separate state, federation, autonomy, or culturalism is not compatible with the historical sociology of Kurdish society.
What should be understood from this? What should be understood is the atomization of the Kurdish nation.
This process of atomization covers a long historical period. As I mentioned above, we can begin the Turkish State’s relations with Kurdistan in the 16th century with the alliance between the Ottomans and some Kurdish Emirates. This alliance lasted for nearly 300 years and dissolved when the Ottomans began modernizing. And the Ottoman State attacked the Kurdish Emirates. Between 1817 and 1847 was the period of the Emirates’ resistance.
To protect their status and continue their presence in Kurdistan, they fought the Ottoman State. The Ottoman State attempted to govern Kurdistan in the subsequent process, primarily through large religious orders. However, the elimination of the Emirates led to a governance crisis. Previously, the Kurdish Emirates in Kurdistan ruled the people of Kurdistan, even within the boundaries of different emirates.
With the elimination of these Emirates, countless tribes emerged, and this led to chaos in Kurdistan. The Ottomans tried to intervene in this through religion.
This intervention continued until the 1880 Sheikh Ubeydullah of Nehri uprising. The Nehri uprising, which aimed at the unity and independence of Kurdistan, forced the Ottomans to seek new methods once again. The Hamidiye Regiments are the result of this search. It is mistakenly thought that the Hamidiye Regiments were established only against Armenians or Russia.
Yet the main reason for establishing the Hamidiye Regiments was to try to govern Kurdistan this time through tribal regiments. After 1923, the main target of the Turkish State was, first and foremost, to change the demography in Kurdistan and, ultimately, to atomize the Kurds, to strip them of nationhood.
Ziya Gökalp calls this the denationalization process. He defines assimilation this way. For a century, this process of denationalization—stripping from being a nation—has continued. What the Bahçeli–Öcalan process essentially wants to do in Northwestern Kurdistan is this.
They are trying not only to strip them of nationhood but also of being a community. Because if you ban for a community—moreover, for a community of 25–30 million—culturalism included, autonomy, federation, and a separate state, you are also trying to strip all the individuals of this community of being a community.
You are trying to strip them not only of nationhood but also of community. Therefore, this is a very serious, genocidal, occupationist offensive.
Neither those in Northwestern Kurdistan nor the Kurdish National Movement in other parts of Kurdistan will bow to this capitulation, and I think this process will not last very long. In the second quarter of the 21st century, making a nation submit and atomize it is impossible.
On the one hand, among the Kurdistani masses, there is not the slightest trust in this process. Including the DEM base, they ask serious questions and conduct severe interrogations. In the local meetings the DEM Party holds, they cannot get answers to any of these questions.
That is, there is no serious argument to defend this process anyway. When cornered, they say: “The Leadership knows this job.” There is a severe reaction among Kurdish youth. A profound hopelessness has developed among the masses, especially after the urban wars of 2015.
We must think like this. Despite enormous costs almost unseen anywhere in the world, a war that has lasted forty years has yielded no tangible results. This leads to decay both in the organization and the cadres conducting this struggle and within society. Hopelessness develops. This must be understood.
In such an environment, people now say, “At least let me see my child in the mountains, or let my children in prison be released.” This is the point at which the PKK brought the Northwestern Kurdistan society. If you were to survey Diyarbakır right now—”Do you want freedom or peace?”—most likely the demand for peace would surpass the demand for freedom.
This is the result of a war that, despite very significant costs, has not produced results. These must be understood. I do not approach these with hostility. The ones we must place squarely on the target board and primarily criticize are our political class and our intellectual class, which always take the side of power.
They must step forward, expose this process, and try to organize. To the extent that we can do this, I think the way ahead is open in all four parts of Kurdistan. As someone who has personally been in politics for the last 50 years and who more or less knows the near history of the previous 100 years, I say: “For the first time, our enemies are in great difficulty.”
There were four occupying states. Two of these have unraveled. Two states are essentially the historical occupiers of Kurdistan. Of these, Iran has serious turmoil internally and is under external pressure. Turkey, too, has become indescribable in the world—unable to find a place as a political actor on either the Western or the Eastern front—with severe economic difficulties and internal political problems.
From this perspective, I think “the way is open for all four parts of Kurdistan.”
On the Stances of Revolutionaries in Turkey Regarding the Bahçeli–Öcalan Process
We must distinguish the Turkish left from those parties inside the DEM and operating around the DEM and those outside them. None of the left-looking groups that operate inside and around the DEM are revolutionaries.
There is no Turkish revolution in the programs of these parties. These parties also have approaches that reject the Kurdistan revolution. Those who think that a colossal issue like the Kurdistan question can be solved with the existing Turkish State by reconciling, understanding, and so-called democratizing are neither revolutionaries nor socialists.
Here, the following development can be expected. If the Bahçeli–Öcalan process finds the opportunity to continue a little longer, this means the dissolution of the DEM Party.
Because the “Turkish” and “Turkeyist” left parties within the DEM are parties that contemplate forming an alliance not with the AKP but with the CHP. Ultimately, it would not be wrong to say that these are Kemalist parties. On the other side, there are parties like the TKP, which has communism in its name but behaves like the Turkish Kemalist Party. And there are genuine revolutionary communist circles that understand and support the Kurdistan revolution and the Kurdistan revolutionary reality.
There is no need to say anything to these genuine revolutionary communists. They have programmed revolutions in both their own geographies and are in a position to see the strategic bond between the Turkish revolution and the Kurdistan revolution.
If we leave these revolutionaries and communists aside, we must tell all the other Turkish socialists that the path they are taking is not the right one. Supporting processes formed under the patronage of an intelligence service and expecting democracy from them should not be the business of those who at least claim the ideal of being revolutionary or leftist.*
What Is to Be Done magazine 12.10.2025
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