A Kurdish militant picks his way along a switchback road in Iraq’s mountains before pulling over to alert his comrades in a nearby hidden bunker that they are about to have company.<\/p>\n
After calling from a phone dangling from a tree, he leads a team of AFP journalists into a bunker under the Qandil mountains, where they have been granted rare access to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rear base in northern Iraq.<\/p>\n
“A peace process doesn’t mean leaving the mountains,” says Serda Mazlum Gabar, a 47-year-old commander with her long, rust-coloured hair and unfailing smile.<\/p>\n
“Even if we leave, we will live the same way,” she added. “Nature doesn’t scare me, but I wouldn’t feel safe walking around a city, with its cars, smoke and traffic.”<\/p>\n
Answering a call from the group’s imprisoned founder Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK has taken historic steps in recent months towards ending its decades-old fight against Turkey that has claimed around 50,000 lives.<\/p>\n
The group formally renounced its armed struggle. Thirty of its fighters even burned their weapons in a symbolic move, although many fighters based in Qandil carried rifles during AFP’s visit.<\/p>\n
For decades, the PKK has found sanctuary in mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.<\/p>\n
Even if fighting has stopped, the guerrilla lifestyle won’t end. It will rather adapt to new “peaceful” ways, the commander said.<\/p>\n
“We were not forced into this life. We chose it,” she added.<\/p>\n
– ‘Not one place’ –<\/p>\n
At the entrance, a large fan is attached to a duct that runs into a concealed passage, ventilating fresh air to the hidden bunker.<\/p>\n
The tunnel then opens into a broader corridor where PKK members and commanders dressed in their traditional military dress \u2013- olive green fatigues or a dusty-coloured sirwal and vest \u2013- line up to greet visitors.<\/p>\n
The corridor branches out to several rooms, each serving a purpose. One, its entrance decorated with fresh plants and strings of lights, is quarters designated for women fighters.<\/p>\n
Iraq’s mountains have recently welcomed new arrivals — fighters who withdrew from Turkey to show the group’s commitment to the peace process.<\/p>\n
Among them is Vejin Dersim who joined the PKK at only 23 and had spent most of her time in southeastern Turkey.<\/p>\n
Now 34, she has withdrawn to Iraq’s mountains.<\/p>\n
“Leaving was very emotional. It is a very special place there, especially because we were closer to leader Apo,” she said, referring to Ocalan, who has been held in solitary confinement on Turkey’s Imrali island since 1999.<\/p>\n
Her comrade Devrim Palu, 47, joined the movement in 1999 and has recently returned to Iraq.<\/p>\n
“In our movement, it doesn’t matter where you are fighting, and one doesn’t stay in one place,” he said in a soft, low voice.<\/p>\n
Today is the time for change, he said.<\/p>\n
He added that the PKK is capable of changing the nature of the conflict and transition from war to peaceful engagement.<\/p>\n
– ‘Eyes closed’ –<\/p>\n
Over decades, the PKK — still formally designated a “terrorist group” by the United States and the European Union — has gone through several periods of peace talks with Turkey.<\/p>\n
They have gone through several seismic shifts from starting as a separatist movement to gradually becoming advocates for Kurdish equality in Turkey.<\/p>\n
It now says it is entering a new phase by pursuing a democratic path to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority.<\/p>\n
According to Devrim Palu, it is generally easier to be based in Iraq because the top commanders are closer, and news arrives firsthand.<\/p>\n
In the bunker that AFP visited, the walls are adorned with pictures of Ocalan and fallen fighters.<\/p>\n
In a kitchen, PKK members knead dough to make lahmajun, which is bread topped with meat. Others watched TV, drank tea or chatted in the corridors.<\/p>\n
One is a designated room to maintain communications with others in the surrounding mountains.<\/p>\n
Qandil has been home to the PKK for years -\u2013 a place that offered greater refuge than the mountains of southeast Turkey.<\/p>\n
At first, fighters hid in caves, then began carving and digging dozens of their own well-maintained bunkers. Qandil became their headquarters.<\/p>\n
“I could drive these mountains with my eyes closed,” one member said, skillfully navigating the rugged tracks at high speed in the pitch-dark night.<\/p>\n
rh\/dc\/tc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Kurdish militant picks his way along a switchback road in Iraq’s mountains before pulling over to alert his comrades in a nearby hidden bunker that they are about to have company. After calling from a phone dangling from a tree, he leads a team of AFP journalists into a bunker under the Qandil mountains, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[95,157,448,119],"class_list":["post-19660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-conflict","tag-iraq","tag-kurds","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}