Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be about to deliver the biggest blow yet to the fraying ultra-nationalist legacy of Turkey’s founding father and first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. But ironically given recent controversies, the prime minister’s anticipated demarche is not about advancing his supposed Islamist agenda. Instead it concerns the rights of Turkey’s 12 million-strong ethnic Kurd minority, which Ataturk did more than most to suppress.

Erdogan’s confirmation last week that his government was working on a “Kurdish initiative” to finally resolve a conflict that has claimed 40,000 lives since 1984 has prompted furious speculation about what is in store. It followed similar comments earlier this year by Erdogan’s ally, President Abdullah Gul, who spoke of a “historic opportunity”, and by army chief Ilker Basbug, who characterised the Kurdish problem as a test of Turkey’s modernisation.

Reports in Hurriyet and other Turkish media suggest the plan could include a general amnesty for Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) fighters, enhanced political, economic, language and educational rights, and the reinstatement of banned Kurdish names in south-eastern Anatolian towns. Article 5 of the anti-terror law, which has been used to imprison children for stone-throwing, is also said to be under review.

Erdogan did not say when he would unveil his new strategy. But it is likely to come before 15 August, the date on which the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has promised to launch his own “road map” for peace. The PKK has renounced its former aim of of an independent Kurdish state and recently extended a unilateral ceasefire until September. Ocalan, held in solitary confinement for the past 10 years on Imrali island in the sea of Marmara, is expected to offer suggestions on disarmament, political reintegration of PKK members, increased local government autonomy and the creation of a national “dialogue period”.

Ocalan’s road map would present “a solid solution”, Hasip Kaplan of the Kurdish Democratic Society party (DTP) told Hurriyet. “The dialogue period should be initiated … The DTP is ready to contribute to the resolution of this problem,” he said. For his part, Erdogan has an uneven, stop-start record on the Kurdish issue. Although he appears committed, it remains unclear just how far he is prepared to go.

Erdogan’s hesitancy is undoubtedly due in part to the fierce resistance emanating from the same conservative, secular opponents, civilian and military, who accuse him and his Islam-based Justice and Development party of secretly pursuing a religious agenda. “The prime minister has become a very serious risk for Turkey … as he prepares to divide Turkey under the guidance of the butcher of Imrali [Ocalan],” said Devlet Bahceli of the far-right Nationalist Movement party. Deniz Baykal of the Republican People’s party said Erdogan was bowing to EU and US pressure arising from human rights concerns and the stability of northern Iraq.

These persistent internal tensions, illustrated by this month’s trial of two army generals allegedly linked to the “Ergenekon” coup ring and by last year’s uproar over lifting a university headscarf ban, have potential to derail Erdogan’s Kurdish initiative. Equally, if a peace process does take root, it will be seen in some quarters as undermining Ataturk’s ideal of a common people with a common language under a common flag.

But times are changing and even Turkish statist diehards may have to change, too. As historian Andrew Mango points out in a new book published by Haus Publishing, From the Sultan to Ataturk, Ataturk was an authoritarian radical, wedded to a contemporary concept of the nation state and determined to raise his vision of a modern, secular Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman empire. “His objective was to fashion a united Turkish nation out of the disparate Muslim groups inhabiting the country … until they joined the mainstream of the one existing human civilisation which happened to have its centre in the west.” Ataturk had no time for religion, Mango said, nor for separatists and minorities in any shape or form. In 1925, a Kurdish rebellion was brutally crushed and Ataturk’s cultural revolution accelerated.

Eighty-six years after the Treaty of Lausanne, which brought Turkey into being, pressure grows inexorably for a loosening of the Ataturk straitjacket. “There is no doubt that identity policies adopted in the founding period of the Republic of Turkey reflect a notion of modernity that has caused much conflict and suffering and is today entirely out of touch with the spirit of the times,” said Sahin Alpay, writing in Today’s Zaman. “It is high time that Turkey adapt its identity policies to the age of human rights, democracy and respect for diversity.”