Despite the assassinations of three PKK representatives in Paris, Ankara is pressing ahead with its dialogue with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in an attempt to end its Kurdish problem once and for all. The assumption is that by dealing openly with Ocalan, who controls a relatively monolithic PKK, the group’s militants will disarm willingly. A more inclusive negotiating process that engages Kurdish political representatives and Turkish civilian leaders also is expected to encourage a settlement and sideline PKK hardliners.

The problem is that the PKK represents more than Ocalan and Kurdish national rights in Turkey. Since Ocalan’s arrest in 1999, the radical nationalist group has expanded and entrenched its networks across regional states and continents. It has also become lodged in Middle East uprisings and regional proxy wars that have given local leaders new forms of support, prestige and opportunities to mobilize. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s challenge, therefore, is not only using Ocalan as a peacemaker, combating terrorism and creating conditions inside Turkey to appease Kurds, but also ameliorating relations with regional states that are empowering the PKK and its party offshoots.

Indeed, securing Ocalan’s support for a Kurdish-Turkish peace process is essential. Ocalan remains the uncontested leader of the PKK and can influence party members’ behavior from his prison cell in Imrali. There is rarely a PKK demonstration in the region or the diaspora without Ocalan’s photo, emphasizing the continuity of his well-known personality cult. It was only after Ocalan called an end to the two-month hunger strike by dozens of Kurdish prisoners and politicians last November that the protests finally ended. Murat Karayilan, head of the PKK’s Kandil group, could not have done that.

Yet the PKK has become larger than its symbolic leader. Even if the organization no longer calls for an independent Kurdistan but for democratic autonomy in Turkey, it has become embedded in a growing trans-border Kurdish nationalist movement that is now simultaneously active in three geographically contiguous states: Turkey, Iraq and Syria. The PKK also has benefited from regional uprisings and associated power vacuums by securing sanctuary in weakened states. Since their expulsion from Syria and transfer to the Kandil mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan after 1999, PKK leaders and cadres have been running operations and consolidating networks on the ground without Ocalan’s directives. These leaders and their fighters may not necessarily or fully respond to Ocalan’s instructions to make peace.