The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) announced on Sunday that it was withdrawing all its forces from Turkey in northern Iraq, while urging Ankara to take legal action “without delay” to save the peace process that began a year ago, reports AFP.
Turkey welcomed the announcement, calling it a “concrete result” of efforts to end a four-decade conflict.
“We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces from Turkey,” the PKK announced in a statement read at a ceremony in northern Iraq, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.
The Kurdish movement simultaneously released a photo it said showed 25 fighters, including eight women, now in northern Iraq after leaving Turkey. There was no confirmation on Sunday morning of the number of fighters involved in the retreat, but observers put it at 200 or 300.
Following indirect talks that began in October 2024, the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, announced its dissolution in May, responding to a call to this effect by its historic leader Abdullah Ocalan.
According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this violence caused 50,000 deaths, including 2,000 soldiers, and caused billions of dollars in losses to the Turkish economy.
The PKK says it is now following the democratic path in Turkey
The PKK says it now wants to defend the rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority through democratic means, as demanded by Ocalan, the movement's figurehead despite years in prison, in his “call for peace” in February.
In a July ceremony in northern Iraq, in the heart of the autonomous Kurdistan region, about thirty fighters in military uniform burned their weapons to mark the first phase of disarmament.
In August, a Turkish parliamentary commission tasked with preparing a legal framework for the peace process began its work, which will have to decide, among other things, the fate of Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned since 1999 on the prison island of Imrali, off Istanbul, and possible security guarantees for his fighters.
Appeal to the Turkish authorities: “We want more than an amnesty”
During Sunday's ceremony, the PKK appealed to Turkey to take the necessary legal measures to continue the peace process and allow its militants to integrate into political life.
“Legal and political measures necessary for the process” and laws “required for participation in democratic political life must be implemented without delay,” the PKK stressed in its statement.
“We want laws specific to this (peace) process, not just an amnesty” for PKK members, Sabri Ok, a leader of the movement, told reporters, stressing the importance of these measures guaranteeing “freedom.”
Ocalan, whose release is at the heart of the PKK's demands in the trial with Ankara, was allowed in September to meet his lawyers for the first time in six years.
According to analysts, the PKK is weakened by decades of guerrilla warfare, and the Kurdish population, which makes up an estimated 20 percent of the country's 86 million people, is exhausted by a long conflict, which has favored these indirect peace talks.
The pro-Kurdish DEM party, the third force in the Turkish Parliament, played a key role in this process, notably serving as an intermediary between Ankara and the PKK. According to Turkish media, a DEM delegation is due to meet President Erdogan again in the coming days before traveling to the prison island of Imrali to hold talks with Ocalan.
