 begins implementing its decision to lay down arms.){kind=link}
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Saturday that peace efforts involving Turkey’s Kurdish population would gain momentum once the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) begins implementing its decision to lay down arms.
His remarks came ahead of a planned ceremony in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where the PKK is expected to begin destroying its weapons between July 10 and 12.
“The process will gain a little more speed when the terrorist organization starts to implement its decision to lay down arms,” Erdoğan told reporters on his return from an economic summit in Azerbaijan, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The PKK announced in May that it was ending its armed campaign, which began in 1984 and has resulted in more than 40,000 deaths, mostly in southeastern Turkey.
A senior PKK commander told Agence France-Presse that the organization would destroy or burn weapons as a gesture of goodwill. “A number of PKK fighters who had taken part in fighting Turkish forces in recent years will destroy or burn their weapons in a ceremony,” the commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
However, the group has accused Ankara of failing to take reciprocal steps.
PKK figure Mustafa Karasu said the Turkish government “has not taken the needed steps,” citing continued Turkish military operations in northern Iraq and a lack of progress on improving the conditions of PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence on İmralı Island since 1999.
Öcalan issued a rare statement on February 27, calling on the PKK to disband and urging an end to the decades-long conflict.
The developments come as the debate over the future of the Kurdish movement re-emerges in Turkish politics, with opposition figures and imprisoned leaders calling for a transparent, parliament-led process focused on rights, equality and the rule of law.