In candid statements on Saturday, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chair Devlet Bahçeli summed up how the terror-free Türkiye initiative he championed evolved and called for it to move forward.

The head of the government ally spoke to broadcaster TV100 on a wide range of issues but the focus on the interview was the initiative he informally launched in 2024. Back then, Bahçeli made a radical turn and suggested that Abdullah Öcalan, jailed ringleader of the terrorist group PKK, should be invited to Parliament and call on the PKK to dissolve itself. Bahçeli’s move was unprecedented as the veteran nationalist politician was probably the fiercest opponent of even remarks supportive of the terrorist group and its political affiliate, the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). In Saturday’s interview, Bahçeli clarified how the initiative began and revealed new details about his outreach to Öcalan.

"I thought that I should have taken a step for Türkiye after hearing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s speech,” Bahçeli said in the interview, referring to the 2024 remarks by Erdoğan to strengthen Türkiye’s unity, namely, on ethnic identity, in the face of Israel’s aggressive expansionism in the region. For Bahçeli and Erdoğan, a national unity can be ensured only through bridging Turks and Kurds by ending the scourge of PKK terrorism.

For decades, the PKK exploited the community for its own cause to establish a self-styled "Kurdistan.”

”The step” Bahçeli was referring was a handshake with DEM Party lawmakers during the inauguration of a new session of Parliament in 2024. It was a sign of things to come as Bahçeli, let alone a handshake, had nothing but constant criticism for the DEM Party and its predecessors. "(DEM Party lawmakers) were surprised but this was necessary (for terror-free Türkiye),” Bahçeli said.

The DEM Party, due to its close ties with the PKK, acted as intermediary between Öcalan and Bahçeli and Parliament, going back and forth to the island prison where Öcalan was held, relaying his messages to the public. In February 2025, Öcalan release a landmark message through DEM Party lawmakers, calling on the PKK to dissolve themselves and engage in a political struggle for democracy and peace.

Bahçeli also revealed that Öcalan, through a DEM delegation visiting him last December, sent a gift of a traditional rug woven in Öcalan’s hometown Şanlıurfa. "I thank him for his sincerity on Turkish-Kurdish unity and named this as Feb. 27 Peace and Democracy Rug,” referring to the date Öcalan made his historic call to PKK.

The terror-free Türkiye initiative took another turn in the summer of 2025 when the PKK, which announced its dissolution in the spring, started burning weapons in a ceremony in northern Iraq. In August, the Turkish Parliament set up the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Committee to tackle the initiative. The committee is expected to lay out a road map to Parliament for legislative or other regulations for the next stage of the initiative. The PKK’s disarmament has been a unilateral process, but political parties participating in the committee suggested that new regulations may be enacted to facilitate the process, especially lenient sentencing for PKK members not involved in acts of terrorism.

A thorny issue in the initiative is the state of the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK. The YPG agreed upon integrating into Syrian army after the fall of the Baathist regime in 2024 but failed to implement the deal with Damascus, advocating for federalism.

The new Syrian administration, in turn, started a drive to end YPG occupation in northeastern Syria earlier this month. The campaign succeeded and the YPG bowed to demands for withdrawal and integration.

A cease-fire is currently in place in Syria though the uncertainty on the YPG’s future moves lingers. Bahçeli said developments in Syria were "positive for Syria’s territorial integrity.”

”All that happened on the ground is in favor of Türkiye,” he said. "I am a farmer’s son and I know that grass left unattended in a field may soon cover the entire crops. The YPG is grass and its existence should be ended in entire Syria,” Bahçeli underlined.