 said Monday that planned legislation for Turkey’s renewed peace process must secure the release of its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, and cover all members of the group, including its senior leadership.){kind=link}
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said Monday that planned legislation for Turkey’s renewed peace process must secure the release of its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, and cover all members of the group, including its senior leadership.
The initiative began in October 2024, when far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli unexpectedly called on Öcalan to urge the PKK to lay down its arms. Öcalan issued such a call in February 2025, prompting the group to declare a ceasefire and announce its dissolution.
A group of PKK members burned their weapons at a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq in July 2025, and the group later announced that it was withdrawing its forces from Turkey.
Talks have since focused on legislation governing the process of laying down arms, the return or prosecution of PKK members and their possible integration into civilian and political life.
The PKK’s statement came amid reports that the proposed “framework law” could exclude Öcalan and senior figures.
The government has not released a draft or explained whether the legislation will include sentence reductions, reintegration measures or provisions affecting the group’s leadership.
“A law that does not include Öcalan’s physical freedom would solve no problems,” the PKK said in a written statement carried by the pro-Kurdish Fırat News Agency (ANF). “It would clearly amount to sabotaging the process.”
The group said the legislation should cover members at all levels, from senior leaders to rank-and-file fighters, and enable them to participate in democratic politics.
“If a conflict that has lasted 50 years is to be moved onto a legal and political footing, excluding the movement’s leadership from an environment in which democratic politics can be freely conducted will not produce a solution,” it said.
The PKK also said the legislation should be developed in consultation with Öcalan and address the Kurdish conflict more broadly rather than focus solely on laying down arms.
“An approach that reduces the issue to laying down arms cannot be expected to make this process successful,” it said.
Meanwhile, members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party’s (DEM Party) İmralı delegation — Pervin Buldan, Mithat Sancar and lawyer Özgür Faik Erol — met with Öcalan on the prison island to discuss the proposed legislation.
The meeting followed the delegation’s talks with ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Chairman Efkan Ala and Bahçeli as political contacts over the next phase of the process continued.
DEM Party officials said after those talks that there was agreement on submitting the framework legislation to parliament in July.
Before the meeting the PKK had criticized the fact that no delegation had been allowed to meet with Öcalan for two months, saying it was difficult to explain the lack of access to a central participant while preparations for the legislation continued.
The proposed law is regarded as the next critical phase of an initiative the government calls a “Terrorism-Free Turkey.”
The government has emphasized verification that the PKK has laid down its arms and dissolved but has not publicly committed to Öcalan’s release or a general amnesty.
Öcalan has been imprisoned since 1999 and is serving an aggravated life sentence on İmralı Island south of İstanbul.
The PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has waged an armed campaign against the Turkish state since 1984. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
An earlier peace process launched in 2013 collapsed in 2015, leading to renewed fighting and extensive destruction in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. The lack of a detailed legal roadmap remains one of the main uncertainties surrounding the current initiative.