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In a surprising development, the terrorist group PKK's imprisoned ringleader, Abdullah Ocalan's June letter to the Arab tribes in northeastern Syria, has been made public.
This symbolic move seems designed to address a key vulnerability of the YPG-dominated SDF and signals that, while Ocalan advocates for the PKK’s end, he envisions a different approach for sustaining the SDF’s control.
Ocalan's letter contains several notable mistakes and ironies. He frames Arabs and Kurds as Hanafi Muslims, despite both populations predominantly following the Shafi school of jurisprudence, unlike Turks, who are primarily Hanafi.
More substantively, he emphasizes historic ties between Kurds and Arabs in Syria, invoking a "brotherly" relationship that stretches back to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and continues "after "Islam"—whatever that means.
Based on this historical narrative, Ocalan imagines the existence of a current Kurdish-Arab alliance in northeastern Syria as a social and political contract, one he says he supports.
He stresses equality between Arabs and Kurds and calls for a democratic coexistence, urging Arab tribes to support the SDF and remain loyal to it to ensure its continuity.
The letter reflects Ocalan's awareness of the demographic realities in northeastern Syria.
With Arabs forming the majority in the region, he frames tribal support as essential to bolstering the SDF’s authority and legitimizing the so-called Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Ocalan repeatedly invokes Islam as common ground but omits any discussion of his policies and ideology that sought to undermine religious identity among Kurds or his atheist beliefs.
For decades, the PKK claimed that the concept of a Muslim brotherhood was exploited by Turks and Arabs to suppress Kurdish rights. Now, Ocalan repurposes the same argument he vehemently criticized to win Arab tribal support.
He also sidesteps the reality on the ground: northeastern Syria is far from democratic or equal. Like historic communist regimes, the SDF functions as a one-party system dominated by PKK cadres, who maintain control over both Arab and Kurdish communities, often through repression.
While Ocalan's rhetoric promotes equality, the political reality remains heavily skewed, highlighting the dissonance between ideological messaging and on-the-ground governance.
Ocalan's letter, now made public, indicates that he sees the PKK's Syrian branch on a different path than the PKK itself.
Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense for Ocalan to call for the disarmament of the PKK while trying to galvanize demographic support around the SDF.
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