This chapter assesses the role of backchannel negotiations in the Northern Irish and Turkey's Kurdish peace processes. Backchannels are one of the three major aspects of this analysis due to their role in initiating a peace process and forming the pre-negotiation stage of a conflict resolution process. This chapter examines the secret channels which were opened to make contact between the British government and republican movement that included both SF and the IRA, and between the Turkish government and pro-Kurdish movement that contained both the HDP and its predecessors, and the PKK. Th ese channels were active for more than twenty years in both conflicts.

The chapter argues that secret negotiations in Northern Ireland and Turkey reduced the concerns of disputing parties about trust and reliability. Therefore, these negotiations facilitated a level of understanding when it was not possible to meet officially. It states that direct and indirect backchannels made it possible to carry out official negotiations and played a signifi cant role towards de-escalating both conflicts. Th ese kind of talks enable a discussion of conflicting parties’ demands in a flexible environment, with no preconditions applied to the meeting. There has been relatively little exploration in either case of the influence of backchannel talks in these conflict resolution processes. There has also been little interest shown in how these secret initiatives defi ned the nature of official negotiations. This chapter asks the following question to explore these areas: How did backchannel initiatives play a role in de-escalating the violent acts carried out by the IRA and PKK during the pre-negotiation stage?

To answer this question, the chapter first assesses the impact of direct and indirect secret talks in the Northern Irish peace process. It then analyses how direct and indirect backchannel communications worked to reduce the level of violence and facilitate the conflict resolution process in Turkey. It frames backchannel communications in these two major cases and analyses the under-explored pre-negotiation stage of conflict resolution.