 in Sulaymaniyah in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq while barring them from returning to Turkey under a plan connected to the group’s giving up of arms, two Turkish news outlets reported Friday.){kind=link}
Turkey is considering settling some 200 senior figures from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sulaymaniyah in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq while barring them from returning to Turkey under a plan connected to the group’s giving up of arms, two Turkish news outlets reported Friday.
Journalist Nuray Babacan wrote in Nefes that Turkish officials had settled on Sulaymaniyah after a series of meetings in Syria and northern Iraq. The group would consist of PKK leaders whom Ankara does not want back in Turkey under any circumstances, she wrote.
Ankara had considered sending the senior figures to European and other third countries once the PKK vacated its bases in the Qandil Mountains but changed course over concerns that foreign intelligence services might recruit or influence them. Sulaymaniyah was selected because Turkey would find it easier to monitor their activities there, according to Babacan.
A separate account published earlier Friday by the pro-government Türkiye newspaper cited sources in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as saying about 200 senior PKK figures in Qandil would not be allowed to enter Turkey. The newspaper described Sulaymaniyah as an option under consideration rather than a finalized arrangement.
Sulaymaniyah is the political stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Bafel Talabani. The proposed arrangement was also discussed during recent contacts in northern Iraq by İbrahim Kalın, head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), the newspaper claimed.
Kalın met with Bafel Talabani and his brother Qubad Talabani in Dabashan, Sulaymaniyah, on July 1. An official PUK account of the meeting confirmed that the participants discussed Turkey’s peace process with the PKK and that Talabani backed the effort. It did not mention the proposed relocation or the figure of 200.
The Turkish government, the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the PUK have not publicly confirmed that an agreement on the PKK leadership has been reached. The two Turkish accounts indicate that Sulaymaniyah is Ankara’s preferred option but differ on whether the plan is final.
The fate of senior PKK figures is among the questions facing a legal framework that Ankara is preparing for the process of disarming. The first bill would not include provisions for the group’s leadership, the Türkiye newspaper reported, citing discussions between political parties and Speaker of the Turkish Parliament Numan Kurtulmuş.
Kurtulmuş said on July 5 that the planned legislation would be a temporary, stand-alone measure for members who surrender their weapons and renounce organizational activity. He rejected a general amnesty and said lawmakers could set a deadline ranging from six months to one year.
The peace initiative began in October 2024 when Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called on imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to order an end to the group’s armed campaign. Öcalan called for the PKK to disarm and dissolve in February 2025, with the group announcing its dissolution that May.
A group of PKK members burned their weapons near Sulaymaniyah in July 2025 in the first public step toward the laying down weapons. The conflict, which began in 1984, has killed more than 40,000 people. Turkey and its Western allies designate the PKK as a terrorist organization.