How does the publication of the transcript of talks with Abdullah Öcalan, and his proposal to establish a “Middle Eastern Union” under the leadership of Türkiye, reflect the reconfiguration of the region’s security architecture, reshape the landscape of sub-state actors, and generate a new strategic dilemma for Ankara, Baku, and the region’s key states?
The Turkish parliament’s decision to publish the full transcript of talks with Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, is not merely a domestic political maneuver. It is a signal - deliberate, calibrated, and unusually transparent - of a deeper reconfiguration underway in the Middle East’s security architecture. Öcalan’s proposal for a “Middle Eastern Union” under Turkish leadership, and his explicit emphasis on the role of Iranian Azerbaijanis, reframes the Kurdish question as part of a much larger geopolitical puzzle - one that directly implicates Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and the fragile state systems stretching from the Levant to the Iranian plateau.
The transcript, published on the official website of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, documents a meeting held on November 24 on İmralı Island. Its release marks an unprecedented level of institutional openness. Participants included senior figures from the ruling Justice and Development Party, the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, and the nationalist Nationalist Movement Party - a carefully balanced trio reflecting the governing coalition’s internal fault lines.
Earlier, on December 4, 2025, parliament had issued only a brief summary of the conversation, triggering a backlash from the opposition, particularly the DEM Party, which accused the government of selective disclosure. The full transcript now reveals why Ankara hesitated - and why it ultimately chose disclosure over silence.
Öcalan frames himself as a long-frustrated interlocutor rather than an implacable insurgent. He recounts attempts, dating back to 1992, to open dialogue with Turkish leaders such as Turgut Özal and Süleyman Demirel, arguing that these efforts were repeatedly sabotaged by what he calls “a hand within the state.” During the era of Özal’s presidency and Necmettin Erbakan’s premiership, he claims, the PKK was close to abandoning armed struggle - until Özal’s sudden death and Erbakan’s removal via military intervention derailed the process.
He insists that his influence endures. According to Öcalan, he retains leverage over PKK-linked structures in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and across Europe. Without him, he argues, ending a “century-long Turkish-Kurdish war” would be nearly impossible; with him, Ankara could credibly pursue its long-stated goal of a “terror-free Türkiye.” Turkish officials, however, view these claims with caution. Two decades of organizational fragmentation - particularly among commanders based in Qandil Mountains - have turned the PKK into a loose transnational network rather than a centralized movement. From Ankara’s perspective, Öcalan is less a commander-in-chief than a potential risk-management tool.
The transcript revisits the murky circumstances of Öcalan’s capture in 1999 - a geopolitical odyssey involving Athens, Moscow, Rome, Minsk, and ultimately Nairobi. He recounts encounters with figures like Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and claims he was told that only Mossad could guarantee his safety - an assertion that underscores the international dimensions of what Ankara has long framed as a domestic security threat.
Equally revealing is Öcalan’s retrospective on two decades spent in Syria, under the protection of the Assad family. He criticizes Arab nationalist governance for marginalizing not only Kurds but also Turkmen, and calls for a post-war Syrian model centered on empowered municipalities. Addressing Ahmed al-Sharaa, he urges concrete steps toward decentralization. He also acknowledges close ties with Mazloum Abdi, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces, while accusing Israel of encouraging spoilers opposed to integration.
The most consequential passage, however, is Öcalan’s call for a new regional bloc: a “Middle Eastern Union” led by Türkiye and encompassing Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Strikingly, he assigns a pivotal role not to Kurds but to Iranian Azerbaijanis - one of Iran’s largest ethnic groups, comprising up to a quarter of the population. In his telling, their inclusion could anchor a new geopolitical center in Ankara.
Analytically, this proposal is less a blueprint than a diagnostic. It captures the region’s structural crisis: eroding state sovereignty, the rise of sub-state armed actors, relentless external intervention, and the absence of viable multilateral security mechanisms. Öcalan’s vision resembles an asymmetrical federal order - robust local governance, shared security responsibilities, ethnic inclusion - but the conditions for such a model do not yet exist. Neither Syria nor Iraq has completed its state reconstruction, and both remain arenas of U.S., Iranian, Russian, and Turkish influence.
For Ankara, any regional integration project is conceivable only through the lens of leadership and containment. Turkish strategic planning between 2023 and 2025 emphasizes transport and energy corridors, transit security, and the neutralization of sub-state threats. Integration, if it comes, would follow - not precede - the dismantling of PKK infrastructure, the stabilization of Syria, the reconstitution of Iraqi sovereignty, and a calibrated balancing of Iran through regional partnerships. In this framework, Azerbaijan - already tightly linked to Türkiye through energy and transit networks - emerges as an indispensable node in any macro-regional design.
Öcalan’s focus on Iranian Azerbaijanis is therefore telling. It reflects a broader shift in the region’s ethno-political calculus, where competition is no longer defined solely by the Kurdish question but increasingly by a Caspian–Anatolian axis in which Türkiye and Azerbaijan play system-forming roles. In theory, an integration model that accounts for this demographic and geopolitical reality could underpin new mechanisms in trade, energy, and security. In practice, such a scenario would require nothing less than a fundamental transformation of Iran’s internal power structure.
The publication of the İmralı transcript thus marks a strategic inflection point. Ankara is not legitimizing the PKK, nor is it outsourcing regional leadership to an imprisoned militant. It is, instead, signaling that the old paradigms - total suppression at home, fragmented management abroad - are giving way to a colder, more expansive calculus: one that treats insurgency, ethnicity, and integration as variables in a single, region-wide equation.
Öcalan’s reference to a “century-long Turkish–Kurdish war” is itself revealing. In the theory of protracted conflicts, endurance is typically sustained by three factors: the intergenerational transmission of identity, the institutionalization of parallel власт structures, and consistent external support for sub-state actors. Since 2016, however, Türkiye has fundamentally altered this equation. Advances in military technology, sustained cross-border operations, deep operational coordination with Iraq, and the creation of security zones in Syria have sharply reduced the operational space available to the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The likelihood of the conflict reproducing itself in its previous long-war form has diminished accordingly. External support has also shifted: Syria has lost its status as a global priority, the United States is reallocating resources, and the European Union is absorbed by internal challenges. Against this backdrop, the notion of a “hundred-year war” reads less as an analytical assessment than as an attempt by Abdullah Öcalan to preserve political relevance amid the structural degradation of his organization’s capabilities.
An equally consequential layer of the transcript lies in Öcalan’s biographical account of his movements through Athens, Moscow, Rome, Minsk, and ultimately Nairobi. These claims are more than historical anecdote. They function as indicators of how major powers treated the Kurdish question as an instrument of strategic leverage over Türkiye in the late 1990s. Elements of his narrative align with declassified Western intelligence materials from the 1997–1999 period: competing centers of influence, efforts to instrumentalize Öcalan as a bargaining chip, autonomous maneuvering by Greek structures, and episodic contacts with Russia. In today’s security environment, this experience reinforces a central rule of regional politics: sub-state actors rarely operate as fully autonomous players; far more often, they serve as platforms for external operations.
Taken together, the transcript establishes a new analytical context for assessing Turkish and Azerbaijani strategies toward sub-state threats and regional integration. Unlike the approaches of the 1990s and early 2000s - when the overriding objective was the physical elimination of armed groups - the current phase reflects a shift toward conflict management through a calibrated mix of military force and political–institutional instruments. Publishing the dialogue with Öcalan does not imply recognition of his political role. It does, however, create room for maneuver, allowing Ankara to test how regional and global actors respond to potential settlement models that could, over time, shape the security configurations of Syria and Iraq.
Within this framework, the idea of a “Middle Eastern Union” functions primarily as an indicator rather than a program. It reveals how a sub-state actor imagines the region’s future, while simultaneously exposing the structural contradictions that Türkiye and Azerbaijan must navigate. The first is a profound asymmetry of sovereignty. Türkiye and Azerbaijan possess consolidated statehood, effective control over their armed forces, and internationally recognized borders. Syria and Iraq, by contrast, remain arenas of fragmented political order. This gap renders any integrationist rhetoric misaligned with the realities of institutional capacity.
The second contradiction lies in the competition among external powers, for whom the Kurdish issue remains a tool of strategic influence. The United States relies on the Syrian Democratic Forces to maintain leverage over eastern Syria and its energy assets. Iran operates through a network of Shiite militias while simultaneously constraining Kurdish actors along its borders and advancing its own regional model. Russia continues to anchor the core architecture of the Syrian regime, periodically invoking the Kurdish factor to balance American presence. In such an environment, any integrationist proposal associated with Öcalan is inseparable from the logic of power-sharing among these actors.
For Ankara, the strategic value of publishing the transcript lies in information control and uncertainty reduction regarding the real condition of the PKK. Demonstrating Öcalan’s limited command over field structures strengthens Türkiye’s case for continued cross-border operations in pursuit of strategic depth. At the same time, Ankara can signal a conditional openness to political dialogue - strictly bounded by state sovereignty and without legitimizing armed groups.
Azerbaijan, as Türkiye’s key partner and a central pillar of the Caspian–Anatolian axis, views developments around the PKK and the Syrian–Iraqi theater through the lens of regional stability and energy security. East–West corridors, energy exports to Europe, and the expansion of logistics routes through the South Caucasus all require the minimization of armed risks along Turkish territory and the denial of opportunities for external actors to exploit sub-state proxies against Baku and Ankara. From this perspective, Türkiye’s strategy of neutralizing the PKK while establishing security zones directly contributes to regional resilience, aligning with Azerbaijan’s long-term interests.
Öcalan’s reference to the Iranian Azerbaijani factor fits into a broader reconfiguration of the region’s ethno-political geography. Iran’s internal structure - defined by a complex mosaic of ethnic and confessional groups - remains one of the decisive variables of future regional stability. Political science literature suggests that large ethnic communities embedded in transborder cultural spaces can, under certain conditions, function as bridges for regional projects. In this sense, Türkiye and Azerbaijan are positioned to advance an alternative model of regional connectivity - one rooted not in fragmentation but in infrastructure-driven integration linking the Caspian, the Caucasus, and Anatolia. This model diverges fundamentally from Öcalan’s proposal: it is based not on redistributing authority among ethnic groups within crisis-ridden states, but on deepening cooperation among consolidated state centers.
Revisiting Öcalan’s 1999 trajectory through Athens, Moscow, Rome, Minsk, and Nairobi also underscores how the Kurdish question was embedded in the intelligence and information operations of the post–Cold War transition. At the time, Türkiye itself was navigating a difficult shift from classical Kemalist structures toward a new political system. Today’s security architecture is even more complex. Sub-state actors have evolved into platforms not only for local insurgencies but also for cyber operations, financial flows, information warfare, and external coordination. Seen in this light, the publication of the transcript functions as a strategic signal: Ankara is asserting control over both the internal and external dimensions of the threat.
In sum, the transcript’s significance extends far beyond Turkish domestic politics. It is part of a broader transformation of the regional order in which Türkiye and Azerbaijan increasingly act as systemic stabilizers. Öcalan’s emphasis on Iranian Azerbaijanis, his integration rhetoric, and his efforts to recast himself as a pivotal actor all point to shifting identities and political expectations across the region. Yet the structural constraints - external competition and the internal configurations of Syria, Iraq, and Iran - render his proposed model unworkable without a fundamental overhaul of the regional security architecture. For Ankara and Baku, the publication becomes an instrument of strategic perception management, shaping a new framework for debating regional risks and opportunities.
Ultimately, the very fact that the transcript entered the parliamentary public domain signals Türkiye’s transition to a new model of strategic communication. Ankara is demonstrating an ability to manage not only the kinetic dimensions of conflict but also its political and psychological layers. The publication does not alter the core principles of Turkish policy toward the PKK, but it does establish a renewed frame - one in which Türkiye positions itself not merely as the region’s strongest state actor, but as a center capable of shaping the normative contours of the future order. In a region where security increasingly depends less on suppressing isolated flashpoints than on enabling sustainable interstate interaction, that distinction matters.
The proposals advanced by Abdullah Öcalan for a so-called “Middle Eastern Union” should be read through a strictly analytical lens. His concept reflects an awareness of the depth of the crisis afflicting regional states and of the growing demand for supranational coordination mechanisms. At the same time, it remains a product of a constrained form of agency - one rooted in a sub-state actor that lacks both the institutional capacity and the political legitimacy required to design an integration architecture. Yet the very articulation of such an idea is instructive. It reveals how even armed, illegal structures imagine the region’s future: as a space of competing models in which Türkiye occupies a central role. That, in itself, is a strategic signal. Both state and non-state actors increasingly acknowledge Türkiye’s institutional superiority and its ability to generate new political platforms.
For Azerbaijan, these dynamics represent not merely an object of analysis but a strategic opening. The expansion of transport, energy, and logistics projects; the tightening of Caucasus–Anatolia connectivity; the rising salience of the Azerbaijani factor inside Iran; and the deepening Ankara–Baku axis all point toward a future regional architecture built less around outdated ethno-political fault lines and more around durable statehood and infrastructure-based linkages. Öcalan’s emphasis on Iranian Azerbaijanis serves as indirect confirmation of this shift. Even movements traditionally anchored in narrow ethnic agendas are compelled to account for the demographic weight of Azerbaijanis within Iran and for the growing influence of Turkic states in regional politics.
Within this framework, the contemporary strategies of Türkiye and Azerbaijan rest on prevention, structural deterrence, and the construction of regional security ecosystems. These elements are coalescing into a new doctrine in which priorities are shaped not by ideology but by architectures of interdependence. Türkiye functions as the core - endowed with political authority, military capability, and infrastructural depth - while Azerbaijan operates as the connective hub, anchoring economic and energy integration with global markets. This configuration reduces exposure to risks posed by sub-state actors and, at the same time, offers a viable alternative to the fragmentation-driven scenarios implicit in Öcalan’s vision.
A closer reading of Öcalan’s biographical episodes - particularly those linked to his detention and contacts with various state structures - reinforces the conclusion that the Kurdish question has long served as a theater of international rivalry. That condition has not disappeared, but it has evolved. External intervention has become more selective, while regional states have grown more resilient. For Türkiye and Azerbaijan, this evolution creates a window of opportunity to consolidate sovereign control over key nodes of the region and to limit external leverage over internal processes. The publication of the transcript underscores this reality: external actors no longer monopolize the interpretation of the conflict. Türkiye is asserting its own narrative, embedded within formal institutional frameworks.
The central takeaway from this phase of analysis is clear. The political significance of the transcript lies not in the substance of Öcalan’s individual statements, but in the act of publication itself. It has become an element of the region’s strategic architecture. By placing the dialogue in the public parliamentary domain, Türkiye strengthens its grip over the informational and political environment, creates space for articulating new integration initiatives, and reinforces the positioning of Türkiye and Azerbaijan as systemic centers of stability. Öcalan’s assertions - whether about a “Middle Eastern Union” or about his own historical role - reflect an effort by sub-state actors to insert themselves into an emerging regional model. They do not, however, alter the fundamental reality: only consolidated state actors possess the capacity to deliver long-term security, technological development, and infrastructural connectivity.
The transcript thus marks an entry point into a new phase of regional politics. Türkiye and Azerbaijan are no longer merely reacting to external pressures; they are shaping the conditions that define the rules of the game. This sets the stage for the next analytical step - an assessment of integration scenarios, the parameters of regional competition, long-term risks, and the strategic implications for the evolving security architecture of the Middle East and its adjoining regions.