An Assessment of the Legal and Human Rights Dimensions of the Current Peace Process
Legal Department
Hana Organization for Human Rights
Developments in recent months in relations between the Turkish government and the PKK, particularly the declaration of an end to armed activity, the disarmament plan, and the initiation of legislative measures to determine the legal consequences of this process, have brought the longstanding conflict between the Kurds and the Turkish government into a new phase. The most significant legal development in this regard is the submission of the “Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration,” bill No. 2/3793, to the Turkish Parliament on August 5, 2026. This bill has not yet completed the legislative process, and its subject matter is primarily the determination of the criminal and executive consequences of the end of PKK activity and the status of persons falling within its scope.
This assessment addresses solely the legal dimensions of this development and does not purport to judge the objectives, considerations, or political outcomes of the ongoing process. The basis of this review is the text of the bill, the structure of the Turkish Constitution, international human rights law, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The central question is whether the new legislative mechanism, beyond regulating the consequences of disarmament, brings about any change in the status of the Kurds’ fundamental constitutional rights and basic freedoms.
The answer, at least under present circumstances, is no. From the standpoint of public law, the end of PKK armed activity and the resolution of the Kurds’ legal situation are two distinct matters. A state may regulate criminal prosecution, the enforcement of convictions, disarmament, and the status of an organization’s members without any change occurring in the constitutional rights of Kurdish citizens. The present bill, too, remains essentially confined to this scope. Its direct subject is the PKK and persons associated with it, not the Kurds as a community possessing a distinct identity, language, and political demands. The new bill therefore regulates the legal consequences of the end of armed activity, but does not create any new fundamental right for the Kurds.
This limitation becomes clearer in light of the Turkish Constitution. To date, no constitutional amendment has been made regarding recognition of Kurdish identity, language rights, mother tongue education, the concept of citizenship, or the structure of local administration. Article 3 continues to declare the language of the state to be Turkish, and Article 4 places this provision among those that may not be amended. Article 66, moreover, defines every person having a bond of citizenship with the Turkish state as “Turkish.” These foundational provisions, which shape the identity based and linguistic structure of Turkey’s constitutional order, have remained unchanged throughout the current process.
The issue is not merely the absence of any mention of the Kurds in the Constitution. The more significant effect is that Kurdish identity has not been made the basis for defined language and institutional rights. The principle of equality can prohibit discrimination on the basis of language or ethnicity, but a prohibition on discrimination is not in itself equivalent to guaranteeing the conditions necessary for preserving and transmitting a linguistic identity. Formal equality approaches substantive equality only when the legal system also guarantees the effective use of a distinct language and identity within the public sphere.
Article 42 of the Constitution is of particular importance in this regard. This article continues to restrict the teaching of any language other than Turkish as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens within educational institutions. A distinction must therefore be drawn between the cultural freedom to use the Kurdish language, limited instruction in that language, and the right to public education in one’s mother tongue. In the first case, the state’s obligation is essentially confined to refraining from unwarranted interference; in the second, the right entails a positive obligation on the part of the state and the establishment of the mechanisms necessary for its implementation. Until education in the Kurdish language becomes a clear and enforceable right, an expansion in the ability to use this language cannot be regarded as equivalent to legal equality.
The concept of citizenship faces the same difficulty. The designation “Turk” in Article 66 may be interpreted as a civic and nationality based concept, yet when a designation that simultaneously constitutes the ethnic identity of the majority is also made the legal designation of all citizens, no full symmetry exists between the majority’s identity and other identities. Critique of this structure does not necessarily entail federalism, autonomy, or secession. The constitutional question is whether shared citizenship can be defined without tying one’s legal bond to the state to the majority’s identity designation. The current process has not, to date, engaged with such a reconsideration.
The case law of the European Court of Human Rights likewise shows that the legal question of the Kurds has not been confined to the armed conflict. In its 1998 ruling on the dissolution of the Socialist Party of Turkey, the Court held that the mere incompatibility of a political program with the state’s existing structure is not, by itself, sufficient to remove that program from the protection of freedom of association, so long as the change sought is pursued through democratic means. In its 2002 and 2010 rulings on the dissolution of political parties linked to Kurdish demands, the Court likewise distinguished between the peaceful defense of political and linguistic rights and resort to violence. The upshot of this case law is clear: the end of armed activity leads to legal normalization only when the possibility of pursuing the same demands peacefully within the political sphere is also guaranteed.
This same consideration holds true with respect to language rights. In 2009, the European Court found that the suspension of students who had sought the introduction of optional Kurdish language courses violated the right to education. In a further ruling in 2012, action taken against a union that supported mother tongue education was found incompatible with freedom of expression and association. These rulings did not amount to recognition of a general right to public education in Kurdish, but they did establish an important legal boundary: the peaceful assertion of language rights cannot be removed from the scope of legal protection merely through a general reference to national security.
The European Court’s 2020 ruling concerning the prolonged detention of Selahattin Demirtaş is likewise significant from the standpoint of public law. The Court criticized the use of detention as a means of restricting pluralism and political debate and found a violation of the Convention. The significance of this precedent for the current process lies in the fact that legal normalization cannot be measured solely by the end of armed activity. The limits placed on the use of criminal law and anti terrorism provisions against nonviolent political activity form part of this same assessment.
The executive structure of the new bill likewise continues to assign a considerable role to executive and security institutions. The realization of disarmament is made contingent on the assessment of security institutions and confirmation by the National Security Council, and a body composed of senior executive and security officials will oversee a significant part of the process. The existence of such a mechanism for managing disarmament is not in itself incompatible with public law, but wherever its decisions bear directly on criminal prosecution, the enforcement of penalties, or individual rights, the principle of the rule of law requires that the limits of its authority and the availability of independent judicial oversight be clearly guaranteed.
The bill’s provision for legal, administrative, and criminal immunity for persons involved in its implementation is likewise objectionable in the absence of a precise delineation of the limits of responsibility. The necessity of carrying out the peace process cannot serve as grounds for creating a sphere immune from accountability. This point is especially significant in light of the European Court’s prior rulings concerning violations of the rights of Kurdish citizens by security forces. For example, in a 1996 case concerning the destruction of homes by security forces, the Court found the Turkish state responsible.
The more significant weakness of the bill is the absence of a comprehensive transitional justice framework. Its text contains no independent mechanism for truth seeking regarding violations committed over the decades of conflict, no comprehensive program for compensating victims, and no special arrangements for examining responsibility for violations attributed to the state’s security and military forces. This is not to suggest a denial of the general rules of responsibility under Turkish law. The specific objection is that while the bill directly and in detail regulates the criminal status of persons associated with the PKK, it has not incorporated into the process any corresponding mechanism of transitional justice for accountability regarding violations attributed to the state party.
The legal upshot of these developments is that the status of the Kurds’ fundamental rights has not, at least at this stage, undergone any fundamental change. No constitutional amendment has been made to recognize Kurdish identity, guarantee mother tongue education, redefine the concept of citizenship, or establish rights relating to local administration. What has taken legal form in the present bill lies essentially within the domain of criminal law, the enforcement of penalties, and the regulation of the consequences of disarmament.
From a constitutional perspective, peace will produce lasting effects only when, in addition to the end of violence, the legal relationship between the state and Kurdish citizens is also reordered at the normative level. Language, identity, and political participation move beyond the realm of public policy and revocable concessions only when they become clear rights that can be invoked against public authority. The transition out of conflict likewise requires balanced attention to victims’ rights, truth seeking, reparation, and accountability for violations attributed to all parties to the conflict.
In the view of the Legal Department of the Hana Organization for Human Rights, the new bill may be regarded as a significant development in criminal policy relating to the end of PKK armed activity, but this development is not yet equivalent to a change in the legal status of the Kurds. So long as the constitutional provisions bearing on identity, language, and citizenship remain unamended, and so long as the process continues to lack a comprehensive transitional justice framework, what is taking legal shape is the regulation of the consequences of the end of armed activity, not the legal resolution of the Kurdish question.