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Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), will make a rare visit to Gaziantep, a southern province and the last stopover of the party’s officials engaged in a nationwide tour focusing on southeastern Türkiye for the terror-free Türkiye initiative.
Bahçeli, who recently recovered from a serious bout of illness, rarely leaves the capital Ankara nowadays, but media reports say he will make an exception for the National Unity and Brotherhood conventions of his party, where his lieutenants have promoted the initiative launched by Bahçeli last year.
This week, nationalist leader’s posters adorned the historic walls of Diyarbakır, a former hotbed of PKK attacks, accompanied by the slogan “Centuries-Old Unity, Eternal Brotherhood.” Bahçeli touts the initiative as a new step to cement Turkish-Kurdish unity. For years, the MHP has advocated a hardline policy focusing on military measures to crush the PKK, but Bahçeli dramatically changed this rhetoric when he unexpectedly called on the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, to convince the group to lay down arms.
The uncommon sight of Bahçeli in a city unfairly associated with PKK activities is a breakthrough in itself, but also marks a new era in the southeast in particular, where the terrorist group exploited the Kurdish community for recruits.
The initiative is advancing quietly nowadays after the PKK held a symbolic ceremony where several members literally burned their weapons in July in northern Iraq. The most visible aspect of the initiative is a parliamentary committee, which held its most recent meeting on Wednesday. The National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Committee was established in August to hear from different actors involved or impacted by the initiative and contribute to future legislation to advance the initiative.
Support for initiative
On Wednesday, the committee hosted representatives of think tanks and survey companies. Daily Sabah columnist Ihsan Aktaş, who also chairs GENAR Research, told the committee’s Wednesday session that the Turkish and Kurdish community in Türkiye did not have as many differences as claimed.
“This is what our surveys indicated,” Aktaş said. “Our survey among the Kurdish electorate showed that 96% of them view Türkiye as their homeland,” Aktaş said.
The PKK, for decades, promoted its campaign of terrorism as an armed struggle to establish a self-styled “Kurdistan” for the Kurdish community in the southeast. “Eighty-eight percent of people we interviewed openly say Turks and Kurds are brothers and sisters, and another 95% express their pride of being a Turkish citizen,” Aktaş said.
“Overall, we see a positive view of being a Turkish citizen,” he said, reiterating that the data they had was obtained at a time of lessening “separatist narratives.”
Support for armed struggles amid Kurds has fallen sharply, Reha Ruhavioğlu, head of the Kurdish Studies Center (KSC), told Daily Sabah, underlining that the initiative is seeing widespread support.
The transformation that enabled the change in perception regarding how Kurds can achieve their rights is rooted in several sociological facts, Ruhavioğlu said after he attended the parliamentary committee’s meeting on Wednesday.
“No one expected such a conflict to last around 45 years. It has spanned at least three generations, leaving over 50,000 dead, 100,000 imprisoned and millions directly affected,” he said.
Yet he argued that Türkiye now has a rare chance to move forward. “Support for armed struggles has dropped below 10%, while categorical support for disarmament has risen. This shows the process has a strong sociological foundation.”
Ruhavioğlu highlighted how Kurdish identity in Türkiye has become both stronger and more openly expressed, without undermining attachment to the state. “Two-thirds of Kurds strongly embrace their identity. At the same time, the proportion who feel attached to Türkiye has risen from 52% to 65% in two years.” Ruhavioğlu told the commission that, according to the mentioned data, Kurdish identity is not in contradiction with belonging to Türkiye.
“Usually, having a Turkish identity and being Kurdish were seen as rival concepts; there was the assumption that there was a negative correlation between the two. However, today we see that this has changed.” This process can be a means to strengthen both a strong Kurdish identity and belonging to Türkiye, Ruhavioğlu said, adding that he believed this sense of belonging must be bolstered through new initiatives.
Central to future progress, he said, is addressing social and economic disparities. Ruhavioğlu pointed out that Kurdish citizens overwhelmingly support stronger local administrations and expanded Kurdish-language rights, but these demands also find significant backing among Turkish citizens.
While acknowledging broad support for the commission’s goals, Ruhavioğlu warned that public emotions such as hope and trust have not yet caught up. “We are in a phase of negative peace, where weapons are silent but confidence remains weak. To succeed, we need positive peace – legal and political frameworks that guarantee coexistence and equality.” The parliamentary commission is expected to continue consultations with political actors, civil society and regional stakeholders.
