 began withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil to northern Iraq on Sunday, while urging Ankara to release its jailed leader to ensure the success of the peace process.){kind=link}
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) began withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil to northern Iraq on Sunday, while urging Ankara to release its jailed leader to ensure the success of the peace process.
The PKK formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that had claimed some 40,000 lives.
“We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey,” the PKK said in a statement read out in Kurdish and Turkish in a remote village in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq, according to an Agence France-Presse journalist present.
Standing in front of large banners of jailed PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan were 25 fighters carrying assault rifles — among them three commanders — whom the PKK said had just left Turkey. Eight were women.
It was not immediately clear how many fighters would be involved in the withdrawal but observers estimated it would likely be between 200 to 300.
Turkey hailed the move as “concrete results of progress” in efforts to end one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.
“With today’s developments, the PKK’s decision to withdraw from Turkey and the announcement of new steps toward the disarmament process are concrete results of progress,” said Ömer Çelik, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
But the PKK urged the Turkish government to waste no time in taking the necessary legal steps to advance the process, which began a year ago when Ankara offered an unexpected olive branch to its jailed leader Öcalan.
The PKK said Öcalan’s release was “crucial” and called for members of a parliamentary commission managing the peace process to meet with him as soon as possible.
“Significant steps need to be taken, legal arrangements for a process compatible with freedom,” senior PKK militant 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 PKK wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call in February by Öcalan.
Now 76, Öcalan has led the process from his prison cell on İmralı island near İstanbul where he has been held in solitary since 1999.
“It’s very difficult to carry out such an important process in isolation or in prison conditions. His freedom is crucial for this process to advance with greater effectiveness,” senior PKK leader Devrim Palu told AFP in an interview after the ceremony.
Prison visits
Indirect talks with the PKK began late last year with the backing of President Erdoğan, who hailed the group’s move to start destroying weapons in July as a victory for the nation.
Turkey has also set up a cross-party parliamentary commission to lay the groundwork for the peace process and prepare a legal framework for the political integration of the PKK and its fighters.
But it was essential that the commission meet Öcalan, Ok said.
“The parliamentary commission must immediately go to Leader Apo and listen, that’s the key. He’s the one who initiated and pushed through the process, so he must be listened to as soon as possible,” he said, using a nickname for Öcalan.
The 48-member parliamentary commission is also tasked with deciding Öcalan’s fate.
Over the past year, Öcalan has been visited several times by family members and negotiators from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), and last month he got access to his lawyers for the first time since 2019.
The DEM Party, Turkey’s third-biggest party which has played a key role in facilitating the emerging peace deal, said it would send a delegation to meet with Erdoğan on Thursday.
Analysts say with the PKK weakened and the Kurdish public exhausted by decades of violence, Turkey’s peace offer handed Öcalan a chance to make the long-desired switch away from armed struggle.
In July the PKK held a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq at which they destroyed a first batch of weapons, which was hailed by Turkey as “an irreversible turning point.”
© Agence France-Presse