Debates continue regarding the congress where the PKK announced its decisions to dissolve and lay down arms. Rather than using these decisions as a basis for the peaceful resolution of the Kurdish issue and building a shared future on equal rights, the government is intent on instrumentalizing them for its own interests and survival. To this end, the pro-government media is pushing propaganda framing this as the "government’s great success" and "President Erdoğan’s revolutionary achievements," attempting to turn these decisions into a lifeline for the Erdoğan administration, which is economically and politically cornered.

On the other hand, nationalist-ultranationalist political circles and media outlets in the country claim that the congress decisions—which criticized the Treaty of Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution—are "a document of treason," arguing that "ethnic separatists and the ruling Islamists have united in a project to destroy the republic and divide the country." These circles, which have denied the Kurdish issue since the founding of the republic and see "the hand of foreign powers and imperialists" wherever Kurdish democratic rights and demands are raised, are effectively opening the door for the government to exploit the issue. Despite appearing to oppose the government, their stance ultimately serves its interests. Therefore, to prevent the government from exploiting the issue and these decisions, these nationalist narratives must also be critiqued.

The nationalist-ultranationalist factions in the country are fixated on the congress statement that "the PKK emerged as our people’s freedom movement against the policies of Kurdish denial and annihilation rooted in the Treaty of Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution." However, they ignore the fact that the PKK itself is a product of the unresolved Kurdish issue, framing everything as "anti-republicanism," a "threat of partition," and "treason against the homeland."

But does defending the republic’s values and preventing partition truly require treating these texts as "untouchable"?

If that were the case, we likely wouldn’t be having this debate a hundred years later.

Undoubtedly, the Treaty of Lausanne, signed after the War of Independence, holds a place in history as one of the founding documents of the Republic of Turkey. However, this does not change the fact that Lausanne was also the text that institutionalized the denial of one of the republic’s two founding peoples, laying the groundwork for a crisis that has persisted for over a century.

One of the most striking debates at Lausanne regarding the Kurds was the discussion between İsmet İnönü—representing the TBMM government—and Lord Curzon—representing British imperialism—over the status of Mosul and Kirkuk. İnönü argued that the Kurds were one of Turkey’s two founding peoples, and thus Mosul and Kirkuk, where Kurds formed a majority, should remain part of Turkey. Curzon, however, insisted that the National Pact (Misak-ı Milli) only applied to majority-Turkish regions, meaning Kurdish and Arab-majority areas like Mosul and Kirkuk should remain under British control.

The outcome of these negotiations was that the Kurds were not even recognized as a minority. Lausanne became the treaty that formalized the division of Kurdistan into four parts—a partition originally drafted by British and French imperialists in the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

Although İnönü acknowledged the Kurds as a founding people at Lausanne, post-republic policies were shaped around building a "nation-state" aligned with the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie. The 1924 Constitution enshrined the principle that "everyone bound to the state by citizenship is Turkish" as an unchangeable constitutional article. The denial of the Kurds’ status as a founding people led to a bloody and painful period—from the Beytüşşebap uprising in August 1924 to the Dersim massacre in 1938.

From the republic’s founding to today, despite changes in government, the state’s policy toward the Kurds—encompassing repression, denial, annihilation, and assimilation—has persisted in various forms: from the Law on the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükûn Kanunu) to the Eastern Reform Plan (Şark Islahat Planı), from the Independence Tribunals (İstiklal Mahkemeleri) to the Forced Resettlement Law (Mecburi İskân Kanunu), and from martial law to the state of emergency (OHAL).

There is no need to dwell on this at length. Anyone curious can easily access numerous sources.

However, the PKK was just one of many Kurdish organizations born out of the failure to resolve the Kurdish issue. Under the unique conditions created by the 1980 military coup, it rapidly gained mass support among a significant portion of Kurds.

Chauvinists like Yılmaz Özdil claim, "We ended ASALA in 1983, and they created the PKK in 1984," framing the issue as a plot by imperialists and foreign powers.

But if there was no Kurdish issue to begin with, how did the PKK—allegedly a foreign creation—gain such strength and influence not just in Turkey but also in Syria, Iraq, and Iran?

The reality is that the Kurdish issue became a regional problem precisely because of its unresolved nature. In a region (the Middle East) home to the world’s most critical energy resources and trade routes—and thus a battleground for dominance—imperialists and regional reactionaries have sought to exploit this issue for their own interests. Moreover, it is true that the Erdoğan government has tried to turn this process into an opportunity for expansionist ambitions in the region and reactionary policies at home.

Thus, the question that must be answered is this: Should the PKK’s decision to dissolve and disarm be used as an opportunity to resolve the country’s century-old problem through peaceful means, transforming it into a struggle for democracy and regional peace? Or should we persist in historical denial, leaving the issue open to exploitation by imperialists and domestic reactionaries?

Setting aside the decades-long struggle for democracy and peace, even the recent March 19 operation—where the government attempted to divide the opposition by targeting CHP’s presidential candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu—was thwarted partly due to the stance of the DEM Party and the Kurdish masses who filled Newroz squares. Given this, who benefits from pre-emptively labelling any step toward a peaceful resolution as "collaboration with the government"?

At this juncture, the choice is clear: either persist in the policies of repression, denial, and assimilation rooted in Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution, or return to the truth of the two founding peoples acknowledged during the War of Independence and embrace a democratic future based on shared homeland and equal rights. Experience has proven that the former does not free our peoples from oppression and political reaction—nor does it shield the country from threats.

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