Devlet Bahçeli, leader of government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) vowed not to back down from an initiative he co-founded for the dissolution of the terrorist group PKK. Addressing his party’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara on Tuesday, Bahçeli said their “terror-free Türkiye and terror-free region” goals were “moves for self-determination of the fate of the Turkish nation.” “Whoever dismisses these goals are puppets and cowards. Whoever attempts to undermine it with their remarks and actions has bad intentions,” he said.
Bahçeli launched the initiative in 2024 in another parliamentary group meeting of the MHP, where he called upon the PKK’s jailed ringleader, Abdullah Öcalan, to order the group to lay down arms after more than four decades of violence. Öcalan responded with a call to the PKK in February 2025 to dissolve itself. The PKK largely complied with the call and held a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq last summer where its members burned down weapons. Bahçeli and the government later expanded the initiative to the “terror-free region” by urging the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, which shunned the initiative, to join it. The YPG ultimately reached a deal with Damascus for integration into the new Syrian security forces, but the deal is not fully implemented yet. Recently, the Syrian army began retaking areas occupied by the YPG in a major offensive, forcing the group to sign another deal with Damascus.
In the wake of the Syrian offensive, the YPG attempted to portray operations as attacks on Kurds while pro-PKK groups in Türkiye joined this YPG campaign, stoking riots near the Turkish-Syrian border. Bahçeli said it was a malignant attempt to “provoke our Kurdish brothers.” “You cannot align Kurdish brothers and sisters with the YPG,” he said on Tuesday.
Bahçeli said developments in Syria, where the Syrian army started regaining control in YPG-occupied Hassakeh, as an important stage in the terror-free region initiative.
“The PKK’s founder fulfilled his promise in 2025 and ensured that the separatist terrorist group is dissolved and had its weapons burned. His call for the dissolution is binding for all groups associated with the PKK,” Bahçeli stressed.
“Those aiming to disrupt the eternal brotherhood of Turks and Kurds will lose. Those equating our Kurdish brothers with the terrorist group will lose,” he added. “Our march to achieve the goal of superpower Türkiye will continue. We have one homeland. The MHP will never concede from its goals. Our stance is clear. Anatolia should be peaceful, Öcalan should have hope, the Ahmets should return to office and Demirtaş should return home,” he said. Bahçeli in 2024 has proposed that Öcalan should be entitled to the “right to hope” if he works for the dissolution of the PKK.
The “Ahmets” Bahçeli was referring to are Ahmet Özer and Ahmet Türk. Özer, of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was suspended from office and arrested in 2024 for his links to the PKK while he was serving as mayor of Istanbul’s Esenyurt district. Türk, a prominent politician of Kurdish origin, was also suspended from the post of mayor of Mardin in the southeast in 2024 for his alleged links to the PKK. Türk was a mayor for the pro-PKK Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), whose spiritual predecessor Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was co-chaired by Selahattin Demirtaş. Demirtaş was arrested in 2016 and was sentenced for provoking fatal pro-PKK riots which rocked Türkiye in 2014.
Bahçeli also commented on potential U.S. military action against Türkiye’s eastern neighbor, Iran. He stated that it would pose a fundamental danger that would have devastating consequences not only for Iran and the region but for the entire world.
He said any scenario aimed at installing “so-called moderate, but in reality shackled and co-opted puppet leaders in Iran through military force would trigger a series of grave consequences."
“After Venezuela, turning to Iran would amount to nothing more than an open invitation to disaster,” he said. Bahçeli added that a U.S. strike on Iran, “driven by Zionism,” would be an unacceptable act of imperialist vandalism. “No country has such a right or authority,” he said, arguing that the only force capable of determining the future of Iran or any other sovereign and equal independent state is the will and dignity of its own people. He said dialogue and diplomacy should be prioritized between the United States and Iran, and praised President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to mediate and de-escalate tensions as “respectable and worthy of appreciation.”
Iran’s peace and security, he said, like Syria’s, are a cornerstone of regional stability. “Dislodging this cornerstone through a military operation against Iran would unleash a chain of problems that would be difficult to contain,” he warned.
Bahçeli cautioned that if a climate of war and armed conflict were to expand globally to include Iran after Russia and Ukraine, “nightmare scenarios would turn into reality.” He said Qatar’s mediation and Türkiye’s intensive efforts should contribute to resolving the disputes between the United States and Iran through mutual agreement. “Our region cannot endure another war,” he said.
