An Urgent Call to the International Community to Help Facilitate a Resolution to the Kurdish Question through Peace and Reconciliation
For the first time in decades, the Kurdish question stands at the threshold of a genuine political solution. Since Abdullah Öcalan’s historic “Call for Peace and Democratic Society” in February 2025, Turkey and the Kurdish Freedom Movement have taken a series of unprecedented steps — from the PKK’s dissolution to the passage of landmark legislation in August 2026 — that mark the most significant progress toward ending this century-long conflict.
But this is only the beginning of a much longer journey. As Öcalan himself put it: “A journey of a thousand kilometres begins with a single step.”
In this new dossier, An Urgent Call to the International Community to Help Facilitate a Resolution to the Kurdish Question through Peace and Reconciliation, the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) traces the chronology of this emerging peace process, examines the strengths and shortcomings of Turkey’s new legal framework, and sets out why the resolution of the Kurdish question can no longer be treated as an internal Turkish matter alone.
The dossier calls on the European Union, the United States, NATO, the Council of Europe, and the wider international community to match Turkey’s steps with concrete action: ending the criminalisation of peaceful Kurdish political activity, reviewing the PKK’s terrorist designation in light of its dissolution, and securing Abdullah Öcalan’s legal status so he can participate freely as the process’s principal interlocutor.
A nation of 60 million people is demanding recognition. The international community now has a responsibility — and an opportunity — to help turn this fragile momentum into a lasting peace.
