Significant developments and shifts are unfolding across the region. While Israel, Iran and Turkey remain central actors, Israel is now positioning itself to become the most influential power in this evolving landscape. Attacks on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran stand out as primary instruments serving this ambition. The restoration process unfolding in Syria under Ahmed Al-Sharaa (Al-Jolani) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has likewise functioned as a form of groundwork for Israel’s broader regional strategy. Western powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, are backing this trajectory. The arrival of Donald Trump in office represents another move in the effort by global hegemonic powers to restructure this new phase, through which power balances across West Asia, the Middle East and beyond are being recalibrated.
As the possibility of Kurdish participation in this reshaping gains strength, the occupying Turkish state has been compelled to engage with Abdullah Öcalan. Recognizing the direction of unfolding dynamics well in advance, Öcalan took extensive ideological and organizational measures, aiming to turn these developments into an advantage for Kurds and the peoples of the region. His intervention enabled Kurds to become an active force within the coming period of transformation. For this reason, the year 2025 was widely regarded as a “Year of Leadership.”
Under the most restrictive conditions, Öcalan made an unexpected and decisive move, one that signaled a new beginning not only for Kurds but also for all peoples of the region, including Turks and Arabs. This new beginning entered history as the “Call for Peace and Democratic Society.”
Disrupted calculations of regional powers
A historical turning point has pushed Northern and Eastern Syria and Syria more broadly, into the position of a decisive focal point for the region. In this context, Syria and the territories of the Democratic Autonomous Administration have shown that they can assume a symbolic role as embodiments of the Apoist tradition within the broader regional restructuring. The rise of the Apoist tradition as such a central dynamic has overturned many of the calculations held by regional and global powers.
Global powers are now particularly focused on a single question: whether the role envisioned for Kurds in this new regional design can take shape outside the Apoist line. This concern may also be one of the key reasons why the process deepened by Abdullah Öcalan in the North and in Turkey continues to advance slowly and unevenly. Turkey’s long-standing genocide policies rooted in the denial of Kurds since the founding of the republic form the essential basis of these delaying tactics and efforts to stretch the process over time.
National Security Council meeting and the ‘summary’
The most recent visit by the parliamentary commission to Imralı and the approach taken toward the meeting records clearly reflected this dynamic. A significant portion of the discussion held with Abdullah Öcalan in Imralı focused on Syria and on Northern and Eastern Syria. The partial summary released afterward captured only a limited part of these exchanges.
A few days prior to the meeting, Turkey’s National Security Council held its final session of the year, once again portraying Northern and Eastern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Autonomous Administration as threats. The possibility of Northern and Eastern Syria attaining any form of political status was also framed as a threat. Decisions adopted in the meeting echoed a policy aimed at eliminating these Kurdish-led and Arab-supported structures.
Because of this, the official summary did not include Öcalan’s warnings regarding the danger of Al-Jolani’s administration evolving into an institutionalized form of fascism, nor his views on how the integration of the SDF and the positioning of security forces should be approached. Although Öcalan stated that these matters could be clarified in meetings with representatives of the Autonomous Administration, Ilham Ahmed’s participation in the conference organized by the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) in Istanbul was not permitted.
Öcalan emphasized that resolving the question of Northern and Eastern Syria requires dialogue not between Damascus and Ankara but between representatives of the Autonomous Administration and officials of Turkey.
While Alawites and Druze communities are being killed, while Kurds face extermination attempts as seen in the case of Aleppo, and while all occupied regions, particularly Afrin (Efrîn), place Kurds and other identities under the threat of genocide, Öcalan’s insistence on focusing on legitimate self-defense and the structures and mechanisms of self-protection is entirely unsurprising. Yet none of this was included in the summary presented to the public.
Hostility toward Kurds and democracy
Recent developments indicate that the Turkish state has not abandoned its occupation-oriented and violent policies, even in the first year of HTS rise to power. These policies, however, can no longer be implemented as freely as in the past. For this reason, Turkey consistently brings up the dissolution of the Autonomous Administration and the dismantling of the SDF in its diplomatic meetings and in the economic and political agreements it pursues.
Hakan Fidan and Yaşar Güler, accompanied by Şabani, continue to move across the region with a clear hostility toward Kurds and democratic forces. Throughout the first year of the HTS and Al-Jolani administration, the threat of genocide against Kurds and other communities has persisted. In this environment, HTS, representing a religious-fascist interpretation of the Ba’athist line, together with Turkey, which functions as its principal supporter and often acts as though it owns the group, has forced all peoples of Syria to remain within a framework of legitimate self-defense.