The Kurdish militant 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 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that had claimed some 50,000 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 AFP journalist present.
Standing in front of large banners of jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan 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.
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 Abdullah Ocalan.
The PKK said Ocalan’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 Ocalan.
Now 76, Ocalan has led the process from his prison cell on Imrali island near Istanbul 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 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 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 Ocalan, 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 Ocalan.
The 48-member parliamentary commission is also tasked with deciding Ocalan’s fate.
Over the past year, Ocalan has been visited several times by family members and negotiators from the pro-Kurdish DEM party, and last month he got access to his lawyers for the first time since 2019.
DEM, 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 Erdogan on Thursday.
Analysts say with the PKK weakened and the Kurdish public exhausted by decades of violence, Turkey’s peace offer handed Ocalan 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”.
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© Agence France-Presse
