 leader Devlet Bahçeli has proposed two new commissions to oversee Turkey’s peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), signaling an effort by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political ally to give the process a formal structure as it faces delays and disputes over sequencing.){kind=link}
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has proposed two new commissions to oversee Turkey’s peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), signaling an effort by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political ally to give the process a formal structure as it faces delays and disputes over sequencing.
Bahçeli, whose party is allied with Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said one commission should be formed in parliament with members from all political parties to monitor the process. He said a second body should be created under the leadership of the vice president and include the Justice Ministry, Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry, Family and Social Services Ministry, Treasury and Finance Ministry and the National Intelligence Organization.
The second body would be called the “Commission for Steering the Liquidation and Regulation Process and National Unity,” according to Bahçeli’s proposal. He said it would coordinate state institutions, manage the process, inform the public and counter what he described as possible “black propaganda.”
Bahçeli also proposed the creation of a “Counterterrorism State Coordination Center” within the executive commission. He said the structure would help set the roadmap for the next phase of the government’s “Terrorism-free Turkey” initiative and follow the steps needed for the PKK to end its armed activity.
The proposal came as the process has shown signs of strain. PKK figures and pro-Kurdish politicians have accused the government of delaying legal steps, while Ankara says the PKK must first take verifiable steps to lay down its arms.
The PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has waged an armed campaign against the Turkish state since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The current process began in 2024, and Öcalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, in February 2025 called for the group to lay down arms. The PKK later said it had decided to dissolve itself and end its armed campaign.
Bahçeli has played a central role in the new initiative. Although he leads a nationalist party that has long taken a hard line on the PKK, he has repeatedly backed the process and has also suggested giving Öcalan a defined role under the title “Peace Process and Political Transition Coordinator.”
His latest proposal appears aimed at addressing one of the main problems in the process: the lack of a public mechanism to explain how the next steps would be handled by parliament and state institutions.
A parliamentary commission headed by Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş approved a report in February outlining a roadmap for legal steps linked to the process. But no law has yet moved forward, and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) has accused the government of acting slowly.
President Erdoğan said last month that the process had passed “many critical thresholds” and that the government would “walk patiently” until it reached its goal. But PKK figure Murat Karayılan later said the process had been “frozen,” citing the lack of recent contact with Öcalan and the absence of legal guarantees.