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 Abdullah Ocalan, whose Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) first took up
arms against the Turkish state in 1984, had been Ankara's main
counterparty in talks launched in 2012 by President Tayyip Erdogan
to try to end the insurgency.
But as Turkish war planes bomb PKK camps in northern Iraq and
Kurdish militants step up their attacks on Turkish soldiers and
police, leaving in ruins a ceasefire called by Ocalan in March 2013,
his voice is nowhere to be heard.
Pro-Kurdish opposition politicians who acted as intermediaries in
the talks have been prevented by the state from visiting the PKK
leader, imprisoned on Imrali island in the Marmara Sea, since before
a June parliamentary election.
Senior government officials say pledges made by him during the peace
process have gone unfulfilled, notably the withdrawal of PKK
fighters to bases in northern Iraq, and that until those are
honored, Ocalan has no further role to play.
 "Our fight will continue until not one terrorist is left within our
country and until concrete is poured over (their weapons)," Erdogan
said at a military ceremony on Tuesday.
It was a change of tone from the early days of the peace process,
which he promoted with slogans including "stop the blood, we don't
want the mothers to cry". Unkept promises and the rising power of
the Kurdish political opposition have angered nationalists, and
forced him to recalculate.
Violence has spiraled, with at least 26 members of the security
forces killed since July 20.
On Monday alone, Kurdish militants fired on a military helicopter,
killing one soldier, and attacked an armored police vehicle with
roadside explosives, killing four officers. The PKK claimed
responsibility for the car bombing of an Istanbul police station on
the same day.
"If it gets out of control neither the Turkish state nor the PKK
will be able to put it back into the bottle. That's the fear," said
Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based author and veteran researcher on
Kurdish issues in Turkey.
UNFULFILLED PROMISES
Erdogan, who braved nationalist anger in launching negotiations with
the PKK three years ago, has said the peace process has become
impossible, but has so far stopped short of formally declaring it
over.
In a statement on Monday, the PKK's political umbrella group
meanwhile called for a quick resumption of talks between the state
and Ocalan but set the release of political prisoners and a
strengthened ceasefire agreement as preconditions.
Ankara looks unlikely to concede. "Ocalan is an actor in the peace process, but the problem is that
for him to step in, the PKK group and the HDP (Turkey's pro-Kurdish
opposition) must fulfill their promises," said a senior government
official familiar with the peace efforts.
"Ultimately, the group has not done what Ocalan wanted."
The HDP has acted as a facilitator in the peace efforts, holding
state-sanctioned meetings with Ocalan and sending delegations to
speak with PKK fighters in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq.
Their visits had been the only known way for the militant leader to
communicate with the guerrillas.
In late July, Erdogan urged parliament to strip politicians with
militant links of their immunity from prosecution, a move seen as
targeting the HDP in revenge for the June election, when it won 13
percent of the vote and entered parliament for the first time,
depriving the ruling party of its majority.
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Its leader Selahattin Demirtas, a charismatic former human rights
lawyer who campaigned on a progressive platform that took the party
beyond its roots in Kurdish nationalism, urged the PKK on Saturday
to "remove its finger from the trigger". Reviving peace efforts
hinged on reviving Ocalan's ability to negotiate, he said.
Ocalan's intervention helped quell a previous spasm of violence
which left dozens dead last year as Kurds rioted over Turkey's
reluctance to help their brethren in Syria defend the border town of
Kobani against an Islamic State siege.
While Ocalan remains the recognized leader among core PKK fighters,
his years of isolation have eroded his influence over the day to
day. Qandil, shorthand for the PKK field leadership, was always more
hawkish on the peace process, while youth groups with less regard
for Ocalan's authority have risen to prominence and are thought to
be behind much of the recent violence.
"The Turkish security services have cut off Ocalan. As a result, he
has not been able to have much influence during the recent outbreak
of conflict," said Jonathan Friedman, Turkey analyst at Stroz
Friedberg, a global risk consultancy.
URBAN TARGETS
While neither side has an interest in a return to all-out war, nor
do they have much incentive for an immediate truce.
For the PKK, such is the fury among Kurdish youth at the renewed
violence that to back down now would be to lose face. Erdogan,
meanwhile, has political ambitions on his mind.
Turkey could face another election later this autumn if the AK Party
which he founded is unable to form a coalition after losing its
majority.
Continued violence could stir up nationalist sentiment in support of
the AKP and remind non-Kurdish voters, some of whom backed the HDP,
of the violent side of Kurdish nationalism.
"It is clear by now that the HDP ... cannot pursue a policy
independent of the PKK," Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote in
the pro-government Daily Sabah on August 4.
In a Reuters interview, Demirtas last month accused the AKP of
dragging Turkey into conflict in revenge for its weaker election
performance, a charge the government strongly denies. It says the
military campaign against the PKK is a response to a surge in
attacks on the security forces.
"Erdogan is taking a huge gamble," said Jenkins, the Istanbul-based
author, warning that the PKK could increasingly stage attacks in
urban centers outside the largely Kurdish southeast, such as
Monday's bombing in Istanbul, or lose control of angry Kurdish
youths altogether.
"This resentment could pop up in one hundred or one thousand
different places, and that's a lot more dangerous than a return to
the PKK's insurgency."
(Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul, Orhan Coskun in
Ankara; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Janet McBride)
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