Even from the island prison where he has spent the past 26 years, Abdullah Ocalan still wields power over the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the rebel group he founded to fight for a Kurdish homeland. On March 1st, two days after Mr Ocalan called on the group to disarm and disband, the PKK’s commanders in northern Iraq announced they would heed the call and declared a ceasefire. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” the group said in a statement. Having claimed more than 40,000 lives, displaced millions of people, and spread from south-eastern Turkey into Iraq and Syria, one of the longest wars in the world may at last be nearing its end.

For Turkey’s government, headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the ceasefire means a chance to claim victory over the PKK and to dismantle or weaken the Kurds’ autonomy in Syria. Policymakers in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, reckon this could stymie what they see as a fledgling alliance between the Kurdish rebels and Israel, which they would view with great concern. For Mr Erdogan, peace with the PKK could mean another term in power.

What comes next is unclear. Talks between Mr Ocalan and Turkish officials, which began almost a year ago, have been shrouded in secrecy. Turkey’s main Kurdish party, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM), would like Turkey to offer the Kurds new rights, perhaps in a new constitution. They also want an amnesty for PKK fighters and parole for Mr Ocalan. At a minimum, the DEM wants room to breathe. Since 2016 the government has dismissed and sometimes arrested Kurdish mayors across the south-east, replacing them with government stooges. Scores of other Kurdish politicians have suffered the same fate.

At least in public, Mr Erdogan has been pouring cold water on the DEM’s hopes. Members of his Justice and Development (AK) party say that the PKK should expect no concessions. “There’s talk of whether the state will enter into a bargaining process,” says Omer Celik, AK’s spokesman. “This is absolutely out of the question.”

Turkey has been here before. Previous talks, launched in 2013, collapsed two years later, leading to one of the war’s bloodiest chapters. When PKK fighters, emboldened by Kurdish victories over the jihadists of Islamic State in neighbouring Syria, dug themselves into cities across Turkey’s south-east, Mr Erdogan dispatched tanks against them. Thousands died. Kurds blame both the Turkish government and the PKK for the devastation.

On the streets of Diyarbakir, a city in the south-east, the scars of those clashes have been partly obscured by new layers of concrete and cement. Hundreds of homes in the old quarter, or what remained of them at the end of the fighting, have been torn down. A few new buildings built on the rubble already show signs of neglect, but no hint of life. In Diyarbakir and elsewhere in the region, hopes for a new peace process mix with fear of more repression and bloodshed if talks break down. “People are tense,” says Roj Girasun, a local analyst. “Just because things are bad doesn’t mean they can’t get even worse.”

The fluid situation in Syria, where the PKK’s franchise, known as the People’s Defence Units (YPG), controls swathes of territory, makes things trickier. Turkey expects the group to dissolve, hand over its weapons to Syria’s interim government, and expel foreign fighters, or face a new Turkish army offensive. The YPG, which forms the backbone of the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has other ideas. Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s commander, has already distanced himself from Mr Ocalan’s disarmament call. “This is only for the PKK,” he said on February 27th. “It’s not related to us in Syria.”

There is yet more at play. Mr Erdogan, whose term as president expires in 2028, cannot run again, unless he persuades parliament to change Turkey’s constitution to reset his term limits or gets it to call snap elections. To do either, he would need the votes of another big party. He may be eyeing the possibility of getting the DEM to back him, dangling the fledgling peace process as a carrot.

A ceasefire may hinge on Mr Erdogan’s political ambitions. Talks between the Syrian Kurds and Syria’s new leaders may not succeed. Mr Ocalan’s sway over the PKK may be uncertain. But this may be the best chance in a generation for peace. ■

To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.