PKK fighters begin disarmament in Kurdistan Region as peace efforts with Turkey advance

SULAYMANIYAH — Thirty members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, destroyed their weapons during a ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a major milestone in the group’s shift from armed insurgency to political engagement.

The event, held inside a mountain cave near Sulaymaniyah, was attended by PKK commanders, Iraqi Kurdish officials, and lawmakers from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party. An AFP correspondent at the scene reported that four of the 30 fighters were commanders and that the weapons were set alight in a symbolic act of disarmament.

The Casene cave, long a symbolic location for Kurdish groups and once home to a Kurdish printing press, hosted the gathering. Throughout the morning, vehicles carrying attendees could be seen arriving, according to the AFP correspondent.

The ceremony comes two months after the PKK’s May 12 announcement that it would dissolve its military structures and abandon its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state. The shift followed a Feb. 27 video message from the group’s jailed founder, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on Imrali island since 1999. In that message, Ocalan declared that the PKK’s armed resistance would reach a “dead end” and called for the group to embrace “democratic politics and law” instead of violence.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 in a conflict that has since killed more than 40,000 people, primarily in Turkey’s southeast. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hailed the group’s disarmament as a step forward for peace and stability. “The process will gain a little more speed when the terrorist organization starts to implement its decision to lay down arms,” Erdogan said earlier this week, according to Turkish media cited by AFP.

Erdogan had given his approval for indirect negotiations with Ocalan last October, in a dialogue facilitated by the DEM Party. Ocalan’s message on Wednesday, released ahead of the ceremony, called on PKK members to embrace peaceful struggle: “I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I urge you to put this principle into practice,” AFP reported.

Officials from the Kurdistan Region’s presidency and interior ministry were present at the event, alongside delegates from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Iraq’s federal interior ministry, according to AFP. Some Turkish officials — including representatives from Ankara’s intelligence services — were also reportedly in attendance, Turkish media said.

Tensions briefly flared ahead of the ceremony, with two drones shot down overnight near peshmerga bases in Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk, according to local officials cited by AFP. No casualties were reported, and no group claimed responsibility for the drone activity.

The PKK’s May declaration of dissolution followed a string of internal discussions and growing consensus within its leadership that military confrontation had lost viability. The group’s political wing has stated it will now focus on institutional engagement, minority rights, and legal reforms inside Turkey and across the region.

Friday’s disarmament event was the first public milestone in that process. A full disarmament commission, backed by Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish authorities, is expected to oversee the next phases. More ceremonies are expected in the coming weeks.

The disarmament initiative remains fragile. Analysts note that the PKK’s weakened military position and pressure from Turkey have accelerated the process, but key demands — including amnesty, legal reforms, and guarantees of political participation — remain unresolved.

Still, the moment was hailed by supporters as a historic pivot. “This marks the beginning of a new era,” one PKK commander told AFP earlier this month, speaking on condition of anonymity.

With reporting from AFP