Arab News | The Gulf perspective on Turkiye’s terror-free initiative

In 2025, Ankara launched an initiative designed to create a “terror-free Turkiye,” bringing to an end a decades-long conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known as PKK, and contributing to greater stability across the Middle East.

When the PKK announced its decision to dissolve and lay down its arms, Gulf Cooperation Council member states, particularly Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, welcomed the development as a significant step toward peace, security and regional stability.

All GCC members have also welcomed the dissolution of the Syrian Democratic Forces and their integration into Syria’s state and military institutions. They view this integration of the SDF as an important step toward the restoration of central governance, the elimination of security vacuums along Syria’s borders, and the preservation of the country’s long-term territorial integrity.

They also expressed hope that the process would contribute to greater stability and peace in the wider region. Saudi Arabia, in particular, praised the efforts of the US to help broker the agreement.

In addition to statements issued by individual member states, the GCC as a whole expressed its support for the process. The organization’s secretary-general, Jasem Mohammed Albudaiwi, welcomed the agreement and referred to it in the final statement of the GCC Supreme Council during its 46th session.

Turkiye’s peace process could potentially serve as an important regional experience from which other states can draw lessons

Dr. Sinem Cengiz

The support of GCC states is highly significant for Turkiye because Ankara’s “terror-free” initiative and the integration of the SDF into Syria’s national security structures are closely interconnected processes; the success of one would have an impact on the other.

For decades, the PKK and its affiliates represented a major security challenge for Ankara, and this threat perception frequently shaped Turkish regional policy. As a result, Turkiye’s fight against the PKK was never confined to its own borders; it extended into neighboring countries, particularly Syria and Iraq, where PKK-affiliated groups posed threats to Turkish national security.

This led Ankara to conduct several cross-border military operations, which not only strained its relations with Syria and Iraq but also affected its relations with the wider Arab world. Those operations were condemned repeatedly by the Arab League.

The GCC states, with the exception of Qatar, also condemned Turkiye’s military activity in Syria, warning that it would have negative repercussions for regional security and stability. At the time, strained relations between Turkiye and several Gulf states significantly influenced their perceptions of Turkish counterterrorism operations.

The situation in Syria made Ankara’s fight against terrorism more complex, in particular because the SDF received substantial support from the US, and regional states were insufficiently attentive to Turkiye’s security concerns in Syria, as they approached the issue of the SDF from a US perspective.

Over the past few years, however, the regional landscape has dramatically changed. The fall of President Bashar Assad and his regime in December 2024 came just months after Turkiye initiated a new peace process with the PKK.

Ankara subsequently sought to see the implications of this process reflected in the new, post-Assad Syria as well. The emergence of a friendly government in Damascus created what Ankara saw as a “now or never” moment to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria.

Both Turkiye and the GCC states recognized that the new Syria needed unity and centralized governance. A weak and fragmented Syria could pose a threat not only to the leadership of its new president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, but also to other regional states. The US similarly supported the integration of the SDF into Syria’s state structures. This convergence contributed to a broader regional consensus that nonstate armed actors should have no role in future regional security architecture.

During my discussions with scholars and officials from the Gulf states, I have heard three sentiments expressed. Firstly, GCC states have been closely following both Turkiye’s “terror-free” process and the ongoing efforts to integrate the SDF into Syria’s state institutions. From their perspective, the outcomes of these processes could have implications that extend far beyond Turkiye and Syria, particularly for the broader trajectory of nonstate armed actors across the Middle East.

Secondly, Turkiye’s peace process could potentially serve as an important regional experience from which other states can draw lessons. This is particularly relevant for countries confronting security challenges posed by nonstate actors operating inside neighboring territories. While the circumstances in each country are different, Turkiye’s experience could still provide a useful reference point for regional states.

Thirdly, GCC states view these two processes not only through a security lens but also from an economic perspective. Nonstate actors have imposed significant economic and social costs on the region at a time when many GCC states are investing heavily in regional connectivity and infrastructure projects that depend on stability.

The Iraq-Europe Development Road project linking Iraq with Turkiye, for example, is supported by Qatar and the UAE. Similarly, the GCC states and Turkiye have an interest in transforming Syria into a regional trade and connectivity hub. Saudi Arabia and Turkiye have even agreed to revive the Hejaz railway.

Making such ambitious projects a reality will ultimately require long-term stability, effective state institutions, and centralized governance.

A stable and terror-free region is important, therefore, not only for regional economic development but also for the global economy. So regional, as well as international, support is vital for these two processes to succeed.

For the GCC states, then, the success of Turkiye’s “terror-free” initiative and the SDF-integration process in Syria is not simply a matter of Turkish or Syrian domestic politics. Their importance goes beyond that, because these processes have emerged at a time when the region is moving toward a system in which states, rather than nonstate armed factions, are established as the primary guarantors of security and political order.