Abdullah Öcalan’s Initiative and the Clash of the Four Major Nationalities

The concept of the nation-state has not succeeded in Atatürk’s Turkey, Pahlavi’s Iran, the Baathist republics in Syria and Iraq, nor has the Islamic Republic of Iran managed to solve the issue of nationalities while maintaining the dominance of Persian nationalism within its regime. From these five experiences, confrontational rifts emerged among the four major nationalities in the Middle East: Arabs, Turks, Kurds, and Persians. Currently, three of these countries are experiencing structural upheavals, while in Iran, there are potential undercurrents for similar turmoil.

The phase of Middle Eastern nationalisms, which began with Mustafa Kemal’s nationalist experiment in the nascent Turkish Republic in 1923, can be likened to the case of Western Europe with the establishment of the German unified state in 1871. This unification followed the defeat of the Prussian (German) army by the French army in the Battle of Sedan, leading to considerable turmoil in Europe that resulted in two World Wars – conflicts fundamentally rooted in German and French nationalisms, intertwined with British, Russian, American, and Soviet interests. This dynamic coincided with the disintegration of the ethnically diverse structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had been an ally of Germany before and during World War I.

General Charles de Gaulle’s initiative for reconciliation with the Germans, following his presidency in France from 1958 to 1969 and his new alliance with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, marked the beginning of Europe’s transition into a post-nationalist era. This initiative facilitated a shift from the “European Common Market” experiment of the 1950s towards the “European Union” in the 1990s.

From his imprisonment on Imrali Island since 1999, Abdullah Öcalan emerges as the first Middle Eastern figure to highlight the failure of the nation-state solution in the region. He transitioned from the nationalist program that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had adopted since its inception in 1978 and proposed a new program based on a single nation composed of diverse peoples, which emphasizes equality and freedom for citizens within the geographical area defined by state borders, transcending the divisions of nationality, ethnicity, religion, sect, gender, and political ideology. It upholds the right of individuals to express their cultural, national, ethnic, religious, and sectarian identities equally, as articulated in the following statement:

“A democratic nation composed of individuals who share their fundamental rights and freedoms equally, encompassing a variety of cultures, ethnicities, and religions (the concept of flexible and open-ended identity), and thus based on the unity of individual and collective rights.”

This definition holds the potential to ensure comprehensive integration, aligning harmoniously with the concept of a common homeland, which should be defined as the place where free individuals live as democratic citizens, without being attributed to any ethnic or religious group and without resorting to the exclusion of any of them (Abdullah Öcalan: Roadmap – Issues of Democratisation in Turkey, Models of Solution in Kurdistan – pp. 109-110).

In constructing this Ocalanian definition of the concept of “nation,” the term “constituent” is notably absent. Instead, the term “citizen” is employed, where the formation of the “democratic nation” occurs through the shared freedom and equality of its citizens, as a constitutional, legal, and political entity within the defined geographical area of the state. The “sharing” of freedoms in expressing cultures, ethnicities, and religions is merely a branch of the “democratic nation” tree, not the tree itself. The essence of this nation is anchored in the freedom and equality of citizens within a common homeland that transcends national, ethnic, religious, sectarian, ideological, and political boundaries, and is not defined or labeled by any of them.

Öcalan does not approach this from the perspective of the Kurdish minority versus the Turkish majority, nor does he frame it in terms of the 1923 Turkish Republic’s minority alliance against the Turks. Instead, he envisions a solution to the dilemma of Mustafa Kemal’s Republic through a “democratic settlement.”

On February 27, 2025, Öcalan presented his initiative for “compromise,” which he regards as the “fundamental method,” asserting that “the second century of the Republic will only be a lasting and fraternal continuity when it is crowned with democracy.”

This process, on the part of the Party, will certainly rely on an upcoming negotiation process and corresponding concessions from the Turkish state and the ruling authority in Ankara, aimed at transforming the Turkish Republic from a nation-state into a “common homeland.” Likely, Mr. Öcalan’s initiative stems not only from an attempt to address the historical impasse of Atatürk’s Republic, entrenched in a singular nationalist hegemony, but also from an analysis of the current Turkish weakness. This weakness has undoubtedly motivated Devlet Bahçeli, with Erdogan’s tacit support, to extend a hand to Mr. Öcalan on October 22, 2024. Bahçeli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), is responding to this Turkish weakness, which has been exposed in the post-October 7 Middle East and will not be alleviated by the gains Ankara anticipates in Damascus after December 8, 2024.