İmamoğlu was charged with “establishing and leading a criminal organisation, accepting bribes, misconduct in office, unlawfully recording personal data and bid rigging.” Prosecutors have even sought to charge him with “aiding an armed terrorist organisation,” a reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a decades-long conflict with the Turkish state over its policies of oppression against the Kurds. While the court ruled that this particular charge was “not deemed necessary at this stage,” the broader strategy is clear: in Turkey, anyone who challenges the ruling system can easily be accused of terrorism to be sidelined from power.

What makes İmamoğlu’s case particularly striking is the historical irony of his party, the CHP. Since the founding of modern Turkey in 1923 by Mustefa Kemal (Atatürk), it was the CHP that institutionalized the denial of Kurdistan and suppression of Kurdish identity—a policy that has been carried forward by every ruling party since. Today, the very tools of repression once used against the Kurds are now being turned against the Kemalists themselves, exposing the cyclical nature of Turkey’s political repression.

Turkey is classified as a brown country with both democratic and authoritarian features, but democracy, legality, and citizenship rights effectively disappear in southeastern Turkey, known by the local Kurds as Northern Kurdistan. Since the 1920s, successive governments have maintained a state of emergency under different guises, all of which are used to systematically suppress Kurdish rights.

Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), backed by the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), are pursuing a dual strategy: systematically eliminating political rivals while continuing Turkey’s long-standing policy of denying Kurdish rights. This is evident in their approach to Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, and his call for disarmament, which the MHP manipulates for political purposes.

One of Erdoğan’s latest moves is his attempt to co-opt the Kurdish Newroz (New Year)—a significant cultural and political event for Kurds.

Erdoğan plans to propose that Newroz be celebrated collectively by the “Turkic world” under the auspices of the “Organization of Turkic States” in May 2025. This is a calculated attempt to erase Kurdish identity from a festival that was once banned by the Turkish state until 1992.

A day after Erdoğan’s speech on March 21, 2025, the desire to erase the Kurds as a separate people, became evident in the Kurdistani city of Urmîyeh (Urmia) in western Iran, where Kurds form the majority. Emboldened by Turkish and Azerbaijani-backed efforts, Azeri pan-nationalist mobs, with implicit support from the Iranian regime, gathered in Urmîyeh after a mass Kurdish Newroz celebration (marking the year 2725). The mobs called for massacres of the Kurds and a continuing denial of Kurdish identity.

To Erdoğan, Turkey’s “spiritual geography” spans “from Syria to Gaza, from Aleppo to Tabriz [in Iran], from Mosul to Jerusalem.” It is expansive and does not brook any challenge to this view.

As protests erupted in Turkey against İmamoğlu’s arrest, demonstrators chanted “rights, law, justice.” These same voices, however, remain silent when it comes to the rights of Kurds, who continue to suffer under the very system their political fathers—Atatürk and the CHP—created. This selective outrage exposes a deeper truth, Turkey’s political battle is not about justice but about control. In many respects, Kurds are viewed by the Turks similarly to how the Chinese view Uighurs. Turkish treatment is sometimes little better.

İmamoğlu is still awaiting trial, but history suggests that today’s persecutors could become tomorrow’s victims. The Kemalists who once labelled Kurds as “terrorists” now face similar accusations themselves, as Turkish power struggles turn inward. What is unfolding is not a fight for democracy but a conflict among Turks to dominate the state apparatus.

Despite their internal rivalry, both the CHP and AKP, along with their Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) ally, share one common reality—they need the Kurdish vote to win the next general election in 2028 and cement their grip on power. This places the Kurds and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) in a precarious position, as both factions seek to manipulate Kurdish political aspirations for their own gain. This exposes the so-called “peace” initiative they launched in October 2024 as insincere from the start. Neither the Kemalists nor Erdoğan’s Islamists-nationalists offer true change for the Kurds.

In this high-stakes power struggle, the Kurds must be vigilant against being used as mere pawns in Turkey’s internal conflicts. Americans must also pay attention to Turkish politics because Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is also home to American nuclear weapons. Thus, Turkish treatment of Kurds serves as a signal for the direction of the Turkish state, which should matter to the United States.

Dr. Loqman Radpey, an expert on Kurdistan and the Middle East, is a fellow at the Middle East Forum with over a decade of experience analyzing the legal and political dimensions of conflicts in the Middle East, including Kurdistani regions in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and the Soviet Union. He is the author of Towards an Independent Kurdistan: Self-Determination in International Law (published by Routledge in 2023), the first comprehensive historico-legal account of Kurdish aspirations for statehood. His upcoming work, “Self-Determination during the Cold War,” will appear in The Cambridge History of International Law (Volume XI).

From Repression to Expansion: Turkey’s Power Strategy was originally published on Global Security Review.

In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement brokered by President Barack Obama in 2015, as it “failed to protect America’s national security interests.” Trump justified his withdrawal by arguing that the agreement, as “a windfall of cash”, did not curbed Iran’s malign activities. Instead, he contended, it provided financial resources that “enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behavior.”

For Iran’s non-Persian national and ethnic groups, the failure of the JCPOA was also due to its disregard for human rights and domestic oppression. Western negotiators prioritized nuclear and missiles restrictions and regional security while sidelining the people’s suffering under an authoritarian regime. The economic relief from the deal landed in the hands of regime elites, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their affiliates. Ordinary peoples saw little benefit. Instead, the regime doubled down on its crackdown against marginalized groups, including Kurds, Baloch, and Arabs. With reduced external pressure, Tehran felt emboldened to impose its Persian-Shia ideological hegemony even more aggressively.

Now, with talks of a renewed deal resurfacing, one must ask: will this agreement, like its predecessor, serve only the regime’s interests? Trump’s letter outlined conditions for sanctions relief, including an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, cessation of uranium enrichment, ceasing financial support to Hezbollah and halting arms transfers to the Houthis, and dismantling its militias in Iraq. However, these terms, like before, fail to address the human rights abuses within Iran. If a future deal ignores these realities, it will once again be the oppressed groups who pay the price.

The absence of human rights considerations in Western negotiations with Iran is not incidental—it is a consistent pattern. Historically, the West has often prioritized short-term strategic gains over the long-term aspirations of the people in Iran. The result has been a cycle of diplomatic engagements that empower the ruling elite while leaving everyday people in a deepening state of economic hardship and political repression. Sanctions relief, while theoretically aimed at improving the people’s economy, has instead served as a financial injection for the regime’s military-industrial complex, allowing it to tighten its grip on power.

For Iran’s diverse population—comprising Baluchis, Kurds, Armenians, Qashqais, Azeris, Arabs, Turkmens, Gilakis, Tabaris, Talyshis, and religious groups including Jews and Bahais—a nuclear deal that fails to address their plight could be devastating. The regime’s persecution of non-Persian groups has been marked by disproportionate executions of Kurds and Baluchis, arbitrary detentions, and systematic cultural suppression. Economic marginalization has left these groups disproportionately affected by unemployment, poverty, and lack of access to basic services. A deal that does not explicitly condition sanctions relief on improvements in human rights will serve as yet another tool for the government to sustain its policies of repression and forced assimilation. Moreover, the suppression of dissent extends to students, journalists, and activists who have faced severe crackdowns for expressing opposition to the regime’s policies.

This regime operates outside conventional norms, yet Western commentators in mainstream media, instead of acknowledging the ideological and religious motives of Iran’s Shi’ite rulers, continue to search for rational justifications that overlook the regime’s true nature. If the past is any indication, a nuclear deal without guarantees for the people of Iran will reinforce the status quo: economic benefits funneled to regime elites, intensified repression of national and ethnic minorities, and continued expansion of Iran’s regional influence at the expense of its citizens. A more “comprehensive” approach to diplomacy with Iran must incorporate human rights as a core negotiating principle. Strict oversight and accountability measures must be implemented to prevent state-controlled entities, such as the judiciary, from imposing verdicts on the people, and the IRGC from monopolizing financial resources and oppressing dissidents. Furthermore, human rights organizations and genuine opposition figures should have a voice in shaping the terms of any agreement.

Ultimately, the goal of any nuclear deal should also aim to create conditions that empower its people to pursue democratic aspirations. A policy that prioritizes human rights alongside the security of Israel and the US would be strategically effective in fostering long-term stability in the region.

Nuclear Diplomacy or Regime Survival? Rethinking the Iran Deal was originally published on Global Security Review.