QANDIL, Iraq. A Kurdish militant group announced Sunday that it will withdraw its fighters from Türkiye to Iraq as part of a peace effort with Türkiye.
The statement issued in northern Iraq by the Kurdistan Workers Partyor PKK, came months after a group of its fighters began laying down their arms in a symbolic ceremony, as part of the peace process.
The group has been waging an insurgency in Türkiye for decades that has led to tens of thousands of deaths since the 1980s.
“To avoid any risk of clashes or provocations, we are currently withdrawing all our forces inside Turkey to the Medya Defense Area with the approval of Abdullah Öcalan,” Sabri Ok, a member of the Kurdish umbrella organization, the Kurdistan Communities Union, said in a statement. the leader of the imprisoned group. The Medya Defense Area is a term frequently used by the PKK to describe areas in northern Iraq.
“In addition, similar regulatory measures are being taken with respect to those positions along the border that could carry the risk of clashes and possible provocations,” Ok said.
The statement also called for legal and political concessions from the Turkish state.
“It is quite clear that we are committed to the resolutions of the 12th Congress and are decisive in their implementation,” the statement said. “However, for these resolutions to be implemented, it is necessary to adopt certain legal and political approaches, in line with the resolutions of the 12th PKK Congress…”
The PKK announced in may that it would dissolve and renounce the armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to call a congress and formally disband and disarm. In May, the PKK announced that it would do so.
In Turkey, Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, said the PKK announcement were steps toward the state’s long-term goal of eliminating terrorism within Turkey.
“The PKK’s announcement that it will withdraw from Turkey and take further steps towards disarmament are concrete results of the roadmap for a ‘Terrorism-free Turkey,'” he wrote in X.
He warned against external and internal sabotage efforts, saying that “utmost care must be taken to protect the process from any kind of provocation.”
Sunday’s announcement comes days before Erdogan holds his third meeting with a group of Kurdish lawmakers who have been holding talks with Öcalan on the prison island of Imrali.
A separate 51-member parliamentary committee was formed in August to propose and oversee legal and political reforms aimed at advancing the peace process following the PKK’s decision to disband and disarm. Their next meeting is scheduled for October 30.
The PKK launched its armed insurgency against Türkiye initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Over time, the goal evolved into a campaign for Kurdish autonomy and rights within Türkiye.
Türkiye, the United States and the European Union consider the group a terrorist organization.
Previous peace efforts between Türkiye and the PKK ended in failure, most recently in 2015.
___
Kiper reported from Bodrum, Türkiye. Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Türkiye, contributed.