PKK leaders hold a press conference in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains announcing the group’s withdrawal from Turkey and urging legal reforms for peace.
PKK withdraws forces from Turkey in latest step towards an end to decades-long fighting
NEWSROOM — The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, said Sunday it has begun pulling all of its remaining fighters out of Turkey to bases in northern Iraq, urging Ankara to pass laws that secure the peace process and guarantee the political rights of former combatants.
At a ceremony in the Qandil Mountains, the group announced that the relocation of its units from inside Turkey was underway and shared an image showing 25 fighters who had already crossed into Iraqi territory.
“We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey,” the statement read.
However, it urged Turkey to take the necessary legal steps to advance the process, which began a year ago when Ankara offered an unexpected olive branch to its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
“The legal and political steps required by the process […] and the laws of freedom and democratic integration necessary to participate in democratic politics must be put in place without delay,” it said.
“Significant steps need to be taken, legal arrangements for a process compatible with freedom,” senior PKK fighter Sabri Ok told journalists at the ceremony, referring to laws governing the fate of those who renounce the armed struggle.
“We want laws that are specific to the process, not just an amnesty.”
The group has said it wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority.
In July, 30 PKK members, including four commanders, symbolically burned their weapons during a disarmament ceremony in a mountain cave near Sulaymaniyah. The event marked the group’s first public step toward ending its armed campaign.
The PKK announced in May 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”.
Turkey’s parliament has also set up a cross-party parliamentary commission which is working to lay the groundwork for the peace process, which involves preparing the legal framework for the political integration of the PKK and its fighters.
“Special laws and amendments must be made […] this is a situation specific to the PKK,” Ok said.
“We hope the authorities will fulfill their responsibilities in this process.”
The 48-member parliamentary commission is also tasked with deciding the fate of Ocalan, the group’s 76-year-old leader, who has been held in solitary confinement on Imrali prison island near Istanbul since 1999.
His release has been central to the PKK’s demands.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party has acted as an intermediary in the process and is expected to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the coming days before visiting Ocalan on Imrali Island, according to Turkish media reports.
With reporting by AFP