The 23-year history of the AKP government is also the history of "repeatedly making a Kurdish initiative". There are multiple internal and external reasons for going round and round and constantly taking steps forward and backward. One of those reasons is whether continuing the initiative will help maintain power. As soon as it was seen that it would not work, everything that was said yesterday was rejected and the opposite line was easily adopted.
USA FACTOR
One of the factors affecting the "revolving Kurdish initiative" is the USA. The strategy followed by the USA in the Middle East affected the expansions.
This situation caused the AKP to pursue "regional unity" policies repeatedly, just as it "repeatedly carried out a Kurdish initiative" in the 23-year period. Various models were discussed, from the Middle East Union, where joint cabinet meetings are designed, to the Türkiye-Iraq-Syria alliances.
But every initiative at home had the aim of "expanding Turkey with Kurds" abroad.
THREE EXPLANATIONS
I would like to draw your attention to some political statements that will make it easier for us to understand today's situation:
- DEM Party Co-Chairman Tuncer Bakırhan: "Turkish politics has been experiencing the 'Mecca period' psychology for a long time. However, what Turkey needs is the 'Mecca period' mentality, where political and social unity and justice are ensured on the basis of common interests." (Turkish Grand National Assembly speech, 10.8.2026)
- Mahmut Berhudan, YPG/SDF's Syria/Kobani chief: "We will announce the dissolution of YPG/SDF. The autonomous governance structure will also disappear. (...) The framework of the Islamic Ummah does not disturb any Kurd. We can only continue our existence in Syria and in other geographies in this way. (...) They separated us with the 1926 Brussels line, as if chopping us with a knife. Now it is time to close this parenthesis and make peace." (Türkiye Newspaper, 16.8.2026)
- Ahmet Türk from DEM's İmralı delegation: "I went to Iraq and Syria. All Kurds have their eyes on Turkey. They still see themselves as a part of Turkey since the Ottoman Empire. Kurds can only live a fair life with the Turks and become free. They have no other chance." (Nefes Newspaper, 4.1.2025)
EXPANSION TARGET
These three statements should be considered together with President Erdoğan's emphasis on the "Turkish, Kurdish, Arab alliance" and MHP leader Bahçeli's distribution of license plates 82 to Mosul, 83 to Kirkuk, and 84 to Aleppo, who initiated the latest initiative.
What is desired is expansion under the Islamic Ummah instead of a nation, together as in the Ottoman Empire, with the removal of the Türkiye-Iraq border, which was finalized with the Brussels line accepted by the Ankara Treaty of 1926, and with a kind of confederation like in Medina.
The AKP-MHP alliance and the state bureaucracy it shapes see the overthrow of Assad in Syria, the US declaring war on Iran, and the beginning of the decline of Tehran's influence in Iraq and Syria as a historical opportunity. The simultaneity of the last initiative starting with Bahçeli's exit on October 22, 2024, and the US-Türkiye-backed Shara launching the operation against Damascus on November 27, 2024, is sufficiently explanatory.
THE GATEWAY OF MEDIEVALISM
There is no need to even discuss whether this is possible or not. Because doing so is of no benefit to either the Turks or the Kurds. On the contrary, rather than bringing people together, such projects pit people against each other and cause major feuds.
The government's undertaking such projects with Pact Nationalism, seeing the north of Iraq and Syria as the "historical hinterland", is not only a counter-revolution, but also an attempt at medievalism that will regress our geography to the monarchies desired by the imperialist USA.
