Kurdish PKK to put a weapon in a big step towards ending the conflict in Turkey

After 40 years of armed struggle against the Turkish state, the outside law of Kurdish PKK will hold a ceremony on Friday to mark a symbolic first step in laying its hands.

The disarmament process will start under strict security in Iraqi Kurdistan and is expected to take all summer.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomes this move by “completely torn and throwing away the bloody chains that were placed on the feet of our country.”

About 40,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict, and PKK has been referred to as a terrorist group in Turkey, the US, the EU and the UK. His disarmament will be felt not only in Turkey but also in Iraq, Syria and Iran.

A small group of PKK members will symbolically put their weapons at a ceremony near the Sulemania in Iraqi Kurdistan before returning to their bases.

For security reasons, the exact location is not revealed, although it is believed that the members of the Turkish Procratory Opposition Party will be there, even if there are no other major Turkish political parties.

The disarmament will then continue in the coming months in points created with the participation of regional governments in Turkish, Iraqi and Kurdistan, it has been said on BBC Turkish.

In a video, longtime PKK leader Abdullah Okalan said it was a “voluntary transition from the armed conflict to the phase of democratic policy and law”. He was in solitude on the small prison island of Imralli, southwest of Istanbul, as he was captured in 1999.

This is not the first peace attempt to include Turkey and PKK, but this is the best hope so far that the armed struggle, which began in 1984, will end.

Initially, a Marxist group, the Kurdistan workers’ party, took a weapon calling for an independent state in Turkey.

In the 1990s, they called instead of more autonomy for the Kurds, which make up about 20% of the population.

Okalan announced the termination of fire in 2013 and called on PKK forces to withdraw from Turkey. The 2015 Dolmabahce Agreement had to bring democratic and linguistic rights to the Kurds, but the fragile truce collapsed against the backdrop of devastating violence, especially in the dominated southeast cities, including Diyarbakir.

Turkey’s air force is aimed at PKK bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Several military campaigns have also directed the Kurdish forces in Syria.

The Ankara government turned off more conversations while PKK laid hands. This is now on the verge of happening.

In October 2024, a prominent nationalist leader and key Erdogan, called Devlet Bahli, began a process described by the government as a “turkey without a terrorist”. He called on the closed PKK leader to summon the end of the law. This can pave the way for his eventual release from Imrali, he suggested.

The Turkish Government has begun conversations with Okalan through the Pro-Kurd Party DEM and Then in February came his historical attractiveness for PKK to dissolveRead from two MPs who have just returned from a visit to the prison Island.

“All groups have to put their hands on and the PKK has to dissolve,” read the letter of Pazalan.

PKK was formed mainly because “the channels of democratic policy are closed,” he said, but Devlet Bahselli and Erdogan’s own signals have created the right environment.

The PKK followed the lead of the Okalan and announced the cessation of fire and later announced that it had “fulfilled its historical mission”: the Kurdish question could now “be resolved through democratic politics.”

President Erdogan said it was “an opportunity to make a historic step towards the destruction of the terror’s wall” and in April met with Prochtar politicians.

As the founder of PKK, Okalan continues to be overplayed from many Turks, even after 26 years in seclusion.

Yet he still plays an important role in the eyes of the Kurds.

“I think he really has this authority; he is a major symbol for many Kurds, not all,” says Just Jongen, a specialist in the 41-year conflict at Vageningen University in the Netherlands.

Two days before the PKK began disarmament, Okalan appeared on the video for the first time since he was tested more than 20 years ago.

Speaking for seven minutes, he turned to the forbidden group: “I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I urge you to put this principle into practice.”

Polo Lacoste’s branded shirt and in an indication of its lasting meaning shirt quickly went viral and websites were exhausted in stock.

After the Friday ceremony, the scene moves to Turkey’s parliament in Ankara, where a committee will be set up to make decisions in the next steps for the government.

Since the summer vacation is around the corner, no specific decisions are expected for several months when MPs vote on the recommendations of the committee and President Erdogan has the last word.

What happens to Abdullah Okalan is still unclear. The government says its prison conditions can be reviewed when the process develops, but any chance of release will be left in the last stages.

Erdogan’s AK Party began work to change the constitution and have speculation that this would mean that Erdogan would be able to run for the Presidency again when his last term expired in 2028.

The AKP and Pro-Kurdish DEM party denies that there is a connection between the peace process and the conversion of the constitution, but if Erdogan provided dem

Erdogan is lagging behind in the ballot box, but his main rival of the opposition Istanbul Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is in prison, accused of corruption, which he denies, and more mayors of the opposition have been arrested as part of repression last week.