According to Kurdpress, Sebahat Tuncel believes that the new peace process between the Turkish government and the Kurdish movement will only succeed if it leads to genuine legal and political reforms. In her view, recognizing Kurdish identity, guaranteeing the right to political activity, and ensuring equal citizenship are the three fundamental prerequisites for the process's success.

Tuncel, who has been active in politics and the Kurdish women's movement for nearly three decades, has traversed a path that includes serving on the women's commission of the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) in the 1990s, holding a seat in parliament, enduring eight years of imprisonment, and now standing on the threshold of a new phase of peace talks. In an interview with the publication *Amarji*, she discusses her political journey, past efforts to resolve the Kurdish issue, the current peace process, and the role of women in Turkey's future.

Born into a political family in the Yazıhan district of Malatya province, Tuncel says she became acquainted with political issues during her teenage years. The fact that a family member joined Kurdish fighters in the mountains prompted her to delve deeper into the Kurdish issue and her own identity. She states: "As an Alevi Kurdish woman, the more I encountered discrimination regarding my ethnic and religious identity, the deeper my involvement in the political struggle became."

According to Tuncel, the struggle for women's liberation—alongside the fight for Kurdish freedom and human rights—has shaped her perspective and provided the experience needed to build a "democratic, ecological life grounded in women's freedom." Tuncel believes that the century-long policy of denying, marginalizing, and assimilating the Kurds—pursued since the founding of the Republic of Turkey—is no longer effective. Pointing to sweeping developments across the Middle East, regional crises, and ongoing conflicts surrounding the Kurdish and Palestinian issues, she emphasizes that the current situation is unsustainable and requires fundamental change.

In her view, Turkey’s 1924 Constitution denied the very existence of the Kurds, framing any demands for equality and freedom as "separatism"—an approach whose repercussions persist to this day.

Tuncel emphasizes: "Recognizing the existence of the Kurds is the most important step toward freedom." According to her, Kurdish identity is now an established social reality that must also be recognized in the country's laws. A significant portion of Tuncel’s remarks focuses on the role of women in the Kurdish movement. A veteran activist with the Free Women's Movement (TJA), she notes that Kurdish women have consistently been at the forefront of the struggle for peace, democracy, and equality since the 1970s. She states that despite arrests, imprisonment, repression, and even threats to their lives, the women's movement has never retreated from the principles of women's freedom. Tuncel believes that the "peace and democratic society" process proposed by Abdullah Öcalan in 2025 aligns with the women's struggle to transform the twenty-first century into the "century of women."

Tuncel believes that the government's security-oriented approach to the Kurdish issue is one of the greatest obstacles to the success of the peace process. In her view, as long as the issue is defined solely in terms of "terrorism," achieving a sustainable political solution will be impossible. She concludes by emphasizing that the current process does not mark the end of an era but rather the beginning of a new phase, and that its success will depend, above all, on the extent of participation and steadfastness shown by women, the youth, and society at large. Tuncel holds that if this new process leads to legal reforms, guarantees for free political activity, and recognition of Kurdish identity, it could serve as a turning point in resolving one of Turkey's oldest political conflicts; otherwise, the risk of repeating the failures of past negotiations will persist.