 on Wednesday said the militant group could lay down its arms quickly but that establishing a #Turkish political framework to ensure the switch to democratic politics will be crucial.){kind=link}
The jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Wednesday said the militant group could lay down its arms quickly but that establishing a Turkish political framework to ensure the switch to democratic politics will be crucial.
Abdullah Öcalan’s statement came ahead of Friday’s ceremony in northern Iraq for a first group of PKK militants to lay down weapons two months after the group said it was ending a decades-long armed conflict against the Turkish state.
The conflict, which began in 1984, has claimed more than 40,000 lives and strained Turkey’s relations with its Kurdish minority and regional neighbors.
“The details of the laying down of arms will be determined and implemented quickly. … Establishing a mechanism of laying down arms will advance the process,” Öcalan said in a video message released by the Fırat News Agency (ANF). It was his first public appearance in 26 years.
In a historic video message recorded from İmralı Island and released for the July 11 ceremony marking the outlawed PKK’s (Kurdistan Workers' Party) transition away from armed struggle, Abdullah Öcalan calls for the full adoption of democratic politics and peace, and a farewell to… pic.twitter.com/mEK5X5hut3
— Turkish Minute (@TurkishMinuteTM) July 9, 2025
Most of the PKK’s militants have spent the past decade in the mountains of northern Iraq.
“This represents a voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law,” said the 76-year-old, who made a historic call for the PKK to lay down arms in February and seek democratic ways to fight for the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
“I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I urge you to put this principle into practice.”
Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence on İmralı Island near İstanbul since 1999, said the creation of a parliamentary oversight commission to manage the peace process would be “crucial.”
Other inmates at the İmralı prison appeared in the video standing in solidarity with Öcalan. The seven-minute clip showed Hamili Yıldırım seated to his right and Veysi Aktaş to his left. Behind them, standing from left to right, were Ergin Atabey, Mahmut Yamalak, Zeki Bayhan and Ömer Hayri Konar.
New democratic manifesto
“The overall process of a voluntary laying down of arms and the comprehensive commission envisioned to be established … by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (Parliament) are crucial. Care and sensitivity are essential,” he said.
The former militant said he had written a new “democratic society” manifesto for the shift from armed conflict to democratic politics.
“Achieving the goal of peace and a democratic society, with everyone doing their part, is possible through a positive integrationist perspective.
“The PKK has abandoned its nation-state goal, and by abandoning this fundamental goal, it has also abandoned its fundamental war strategy”
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), the third largest party in Turkey’s parliament, which has played a key role in facilitating contact between Öcalan and the Turkish government, has submitted a proposal to set up a parliamentary commission, telling Agence France-Presse that it would likely be set up by mid-July.
When a delegation of DEM Party lawmakers visited Öcalan on İmralı Island on Sunday, he told them the commission would “play a major role” in successfully directing the process.
A day later, the DEM Party lawmakers had an hour-long meeting in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his spy chief Ibrahim Kalın to discuss the next steps.
Kalın then went to Baghdad on Tuesday for high-level talks on the logistics of the PKK’s process of disbanding, a senior Iraqi security official told AFP.
Upon returning from a summit in Azerbaijan, Erdoğan said peace efforts would gain momentum with the start of the disbanding process.
“The process will gain a little more speed when the terrorist organization starts to implement its decision to lay down its arms,” he said.
Observers expect that as the process of laying down of arms unfolds, Ankara will show a new openness to the Kurds, an ethnic minority with a distinct culture and language who make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s population of 85 million.
© Agence France-Presse