Police officer suspended after protesting gov’t talks with PKK

A traffic police officer in the central Turkish city of Eskişehir was suspended from duty after blocking a tram line and denouncing the government’s renewed talks involving jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founder Abdullah Öcalan, according to a statement from the national police.

Footage circulating on social media shows the uniformed officer standing in the tram tracks and speaking to a small crowd while criticizing what he calls a new “process,” referring to the latest effort to end the armed conflict with the PKK. He accuses the ruling party and its ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of winning elections by fearmongering about Öcalan’s possible release in the case of an opposition win and then “racing to call him ‘Mr. Öcalan’,” and says he “grew up at MHP conventions” in the central province of Kayseri before cursing that past.

The officer also warns against talk of a future “Kurdistan” in Turkey’s southeast and says the new process has left him unable to sleep. Bystanders can be heard applauding parts of the speech, which spread quickly on X and other social media platforms.

After the video drew attention, the Turkish National Police announced that it had “immediately” opened an inquiry.

In a statement posted on its official X account, the force said the officer, identified in local reports as traffic policeman Onur Şener, was suspended from duty while a chief inspector investigates “all aspects of the matter.”

The case comes as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government and its nationalist ally the MHP promote the “terrorism free Turkey” process, presented as a new phase following earlier peace talks with the PKK in the early 2010s that collapsed in 2015.

The PKK, which waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state from 1984 and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has since declared a ceasefire and then said it is disbanding after a public call by Öcalan to end the armed conflict, though many political questions around Kurdish rights and Öcalan’s own status remain unresolved.