Peace Process: A Happy Ending of Sorts

TURKEY - In Brief 11 Aug 2026 by Atilla Yesilada

---

Global Source Partners TURKEY has publicly declared a recess for the month of August, but the Turkish parliament stubbornly denies this fundamental right. Instead, after sitting on its fat derriere for most of the winter/spring session, it passed a very useful piece of legislation before ITS recess. A bill officially dubbed “Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration,” marks the end of the first curtain in the Peace Process with a Happy Ending of sorts. AKP, Yeni Party, DEM Party, MHP, CHP and parliamentary groups, such as HÜDA PAR, TİP and EMEP, voted “yes,” while İYİ Party, which had opposed the process from the outset and mounted fierce opposition during the negotiations, voted “no.” A lawmaker from the Yeniden Refah Party abstained. Following Özgür Özel’s statement that, apart from party officials, lawmakers were free to make their own decisions, initial assessments showed that 54 of the 91 New Party lawmakers and 2 of the 45 CHP lawmakers voted against the bill; 14 CHP lawmakers did not take part in the vote. If you interested in a deeper dive into the bill, the linked Murat Yetkin article, conveniently in English is a good reference (link here). The bill is very narrow in the sense it only addresses the new legal status of convicts for PKK affiliation or related activities, as well as setting in place a mechanism for lower cadres of PKK to return home without the fear of prosecution. President Erdogan is expected to sign the legislation very soon, but it will not go into effect until National Security Council informs Erdogan that full disarmament has taken place. The bill is narrow, because it addresses only a small sub-set of Kurdish grievan...