In an article published on his Substack, Karim Franceschi contends that the long-stalled peace process between Turkey and the PKK has effectively “frozen,” not failed—revealing deeper structural dynamics behind the negotiations.
Drawing on remarks by Murat Karayılan and Abdullah Öcalan, Franceschi highlights a widening divide between calls for political transition and demands for strategic guarantees. Karayılan’s position, he writes, reduces the offer to its core: “disarm first, trust later, disappear now, negotiate never.”
Franceschi frames the issue through the lens of Carl von Clausewitz, arguing that war and peace are extensions of the same political struggle. From this perspective, the halt in fighting reflects not reconciliation but a shift in leverage. “If one side keeps its prisons, its courts, its army… then this is not peace,” he writes, “but the structure of capitulation being dressed in its vocabulary.”
The article revisits past negotiations under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, particularly the 2013–2015 process, which ended abruptly after electoral calculations changed. Franceschi argues that peace initiatives historically aligned with political necessity—and dissolved just as quickly when that necessity faded. He also points to shifting dynamics in northern Syria as a factor reducing pressure on Ankara, further weakening incentives for compromise.
Franceschi argues the deadlock is not just failed talks, but a power imbalance where one side keeps control while the other is asked to give up leverage without guarantees. In this context, what is presented as a pathway to peace becomes, in his view, a unilateral demand shaped by shifting political interests and regional dynamics.
Finally, he concludes, “Karayılan calls it a frozen process. The more precise word is older. Surrender has always been offered in the language of peace. The language does not change that.”
