Who says what for the latest legal proposal on “the Peace Process”

Key takeaways:

• Broad coalition backing: AKP, MHP, DEM, HÜDA PAR, and New Path signed the bill (360 signatures), with CHP largely supportive despite internal turmoil.

• Nationalist opposition: İYİ Party and Zafer (Victory) Party remain firmly against it, framing it as a betrayal or existential threat to the unitary state.

• DEM’s conditional embrace: The pro-Kurdish party calls it a historic “first step” but wants deeper democratization and warns that Turkey’s judicial crackdown on CHP threatens trust in the whole process.

• Public opinion is fractured and declining: Support has slipped from around 65% in mid-2025 to roughly 56% by end of 2025, with deep skepticism about government sincerity even among AKP and DEM voters, and stark divides by party, region, and ethnicity.

• Civil society voices are pushing for transitional-justice elements (investigating past rights violations) that the current bill largely omits.

Background: The Framework Law

Turkey’s ruling coalition submitted the “Bill on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration” — widely known as the “framework law” (çerçeve yasa) or “root law” (kök yasa) — to parliament on August 5, 2026, nearly two years after the current peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) began in late 2024. The 12-article bill establishes the legal architecture for the disarmament and dissolution of the PKK, following the group’s symbolic weapons-burning ceremony in northern Iraq in July 2025. It provides for the deferral of prosecutions and sentences (five years for offenses carrying up to 15 years, ten years for more serious crimes including life imprisonment) tied to PKK membership, leadership, aiding, propaganda, and terrorism financing, but explicitly excludes intentional killings and offenses predating June 2005. Implementation is contingent on the National Security Council (MGK) verifying that the PKK has fully dissolved and surrendered its weapons, with a vice-president-chaired board and a 17-member parliamentary monitoring commission overseeing the process. Notably, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan — jailed since 1999 under an aggravated life sentence — falls outside the bill’s scope and would remain imprisoned. Officials, including AKP Group Chairman Abdullah Güler and Justice Minister Akın Gürlek, have stressed the bill is not a general amnesty. The Justice Committee approved the bill after 18 hours of deliberation on August 8, with a plenary vote expected shortly after, though the actual vote on the substantive legislation is anticipated to occur after the summer recess, in autumn.[^1][2][^3][4][^5][6][^7][8]

Government and Ruling Coalition

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan framed the bill as central to “permanently saving Turkey from the threat of terrorism” and strengthening “national unity and solidarity,” describing it as the product of a “broad consensus reflecting the resolution will of our noble nation”. Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş called it a “unique example of democracy” that could open “the door to a new era” by strengthening democracy and trust, having consulted AKP, MHP, DEM, CHP, and Yeni Yol before submission to build the broadest possible coalition. The AKP’s coalition partner, the far-right MHP, has been a driving force in the process; MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli — who originally proposed the “right to hope” for Öcalan in October 2024 — called for the release of Öcalan and jailed HDP politician Selahattin Demirtaş as the bill headed to parliament, signaling the nationalist wing’s push for a broader resolution beyond the bill’s narrow scope. Analysts note the process carries significant stakes for Erdoğan’s political future, potentially delivering Kurdish electoral support relevant to his prospects for a third presidential term via constitutional change.[^9][3][^10][6][^11][12]

Pro-Kurdish DEM Party

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party signed the framework bill alongside AKP and MHP, with co-chair Tuncer Bakırhan calling it “the first step in overcoming the historical threshold through law” and describing it as replacing “weapons with politics, conflict with law”. DEM has nonetheless voiced structural reservations, criticizing the government’s tendency to frame the Kurdish issue purely as a “terrorism” matter rather than a broader democratization question, and it continues to push for expanded conditions for Öcalan’s “free work and communication,” a parliamentary Peace Monitoring Committee, and further democratization steps once the framework law passes. DEM delegations have held direct meetings with Öcalan on İmralı Island, including a three-hour session on August 2, 2026, just before the bill’s submission, underscoring the party’s central mediating role. DEM has also linked the health of the peace process to Turkey’s broader democratic backsliding, warning that judicial interventions against political opponents — most notably the removal of CHP leader Özgür Özel — represent “a step that, in practice, seeks to overshadow the peace process” and would “increase distrust” in the initiative.[^13][2][^3][14][^15][16]

Main Opposition: CHP

The CHP, Turkey’s main opposition party, has occupied an ambivalent middle ground — expressing conditional support for peace while insisting on parliamentary primacy and transparency. Party leader Özgür Özel has repeatedly framed four preconditions for credibility: parliamentary centrality, transparency, sincerity, and national consensus, while accusing the AKP of having conducted secret negotiations with the PKK for over a year before publicly acknowledging them. Özel has criticized the government for allegedly using the peace process to gain Kurdish electoral support for a future constitutional overhaul benefiting Erdoğan, while simultaneously stating the CHP will “fully support any effort to end terrorism” and calling for reallocating state resources from weapons and prisons toward democratic reform and public welfare. Some, but not all, CHP MPs signed the framework bill; the CHP’s institutional position has been complicated by a court ruling in May 2026 that annulled Özel’s 2023 party leadership election and reinstated predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu — a move CHP called a “judicial coup” and which DEM warned would itself jeopardize trust in the peace process.[^17][15][^18][19][^20][21][^22]

Nationalist Opposition: İYİ Party and Zafer (Victory) Party

The nationalist opposition has been the most consistent and vocal bloc against the peace process. The İYİ Party has refused to sign the framework bill and formally opposes the legislation, with figures like Müsavat Dervişoğlu describing it as a “betrayal” given the conflict’s toll of over 40,000 deaths and vowing “we will not allow the Turkish homeland to be fragmented”. The Victory (Zafer) Party, led by Ümit Özdağ, has led an especially aggressive campaign, calling the 2025 weapons-burning ceremony a “barbecue party” and, more substantively, urging all opposition parties — including the CHP — to boycott any parliamentary commission tied to negotiations with Öcalan, arguing that participation would legitimize the PKK, symbolically recognize it as a negotiating counterpart to the Grand National Assembly, and pave the way toward “national disintegration”. Özdağ has organized town halls, panels, and a national media campaign against the process, and Zafer Party voters show the lowest recorded public support for the initiative among any political bloc, at just 14%.[^10][23][^5][24]

Other Parties and Smaller Factions

The New (Yeni) Party — a CHP splinter that has since become Turkey’s official main opposition — has been notably ambivalent; while its parliamentary faction initially declined to sign the bill and criticized how it was drafted and communicated, leader Özgür Özel (the former CHP chair) confirmed the party would still vote in favor, a position echoed by Diyarbakır deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu despite his own reservations about the bill’s content and process. The Islamist-leaning HÜDA PAR and the pro-Kurdish New Path (Yeni Yol) group both signed the bill alongside AKP, MHP, and DEM, reflecting a six-party coalition behind the legislation. The New Welfare (Yeniden Refah) Party, led by Fatih Erbakan, has called for the bill to be put to a public referendum rather than passed directly by parliament — notable given Turkey’s constitutional threshold, where 400 votes allow direct adoption while 360 votes (the number the bill secured) permits, but does not require, submission to a referendum.[^5][25][^1]

Comparative Snapshot of Party Positions

Public Opinion and Social Forces

Polling reveals sharp divergence by party affiliation, region, ethnicity, and age. A Rawest Research poll in mid-2025 found roughly 65% overall support for the peace process, rising to about 90% among Kurdish respondents but with 42% skeptical that the PKK would actually disarm. Later 2026 polling shows erosion: a PanoramaTR report found process support fell to 56% by December 2025, down from 61% in July, and a Veri Institute survey found 64% of the public doubts the Kurdish issue will be resolved even within a decade, with 59% believing the government pursued the process primarily for electoral gain rather than sincere reconciliation — a skepticism shared even among 45% of AKP voters and 55% of DEM voters. Regionally, SAMER polling in Turkey’s Southeast found only 22.1% believe the process is proceeding “healthily,” while 56.4% ranked the economic crisis, not the Kurdish issue, as the country’s top priority. KONDA research similarly found 62% of Turkish voters overall doubt government success on this front, even as 66% of Kurdish voters retain hope. Party-base support splits dramatically: Yeniden Refah and AKP/DEM voters show 80-90%+ backing, CHP and MHP hover near 70%, while İYİ Party support drops to 34% and Zafer Party support to just 14%.[^24][27][^28]

Civil society and academic voices have highlighted transitional-justice demands as an under-addressed dimension. A BAYETAV barometer in İzmir found 63% of respondents (rising to 90% among Kurds) believe past human rights violations must be investigated for the peace to be durable, though this consensus has not yet crossed ethnic and political lines into a truly inclusive national agreement. Earlier Sosyo Politik survey data from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish provinces found strong majority support (60-71%) for specific reforms including repeal of the anti-terror law, ending trustee appointments over elected Kurdish mayors, and legal recognition of Öcalan’s “right to hope”.[^29][30]

Intersection with Turkey’s Broader Democratic Crisis

Multiple observers, including DEM Party officials, have tied the fate of the peace process directly to Turkey’s wider democratic backsliding. The judicially engineered removal of CHP leader Özgür Özel in May 2026 — condemned by DEM as a “black stain” on Turkish democracy and by CHP as an “attempted coup” — was explicitly framed by DEM as a threat to the peace process itself, since it “increases distrust” at a moment when the legal framework was being finalized[c018]. Left-leaning critics, including the World Socialist Web Site, have characterized the framework law as offering “no amnesty” in practice and leaving “the fate of those covered entirely in the hands of the Turkish security apparatus,” arguing it functions more as a liquidation mechanism for the PKK than a genuine political settlement. Analysts at Al-Monitor described the bill’s dual character as simultaneously “a historic milestone” for Kurdish political aspirations and, in the eyes of critics, “a humiliating capitulation” for the movement, given the narrow legal protections and Öcalan’s continued imprisonment.[^14][4][^6][17]

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