Kurdish PKK announces it is withdrawing fighters from Turkiye to Iraq

In response to a four-decade armed conflict that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced today that it is withdrawing all of its forces from Turkiye to northern Iraq as part of a peace process.

According to a journalist with the AFP news agency present at the ceremony, “We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkiye,” the Kurdish PKK stated in a statement read out on Sunday in the Qandil area of northern Iraq.

A picture of 25 fighters who had already left Turkiye and included eight women was released.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) party’s spokesman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stated on X that the PKK’s announcement falls under the “Terrorism-Free Turkiye process.”

The government, according to Merelik, saw in the announcement and its continuation as “a strategic and historic step.”

In a bid to put an end to one of the region’s longest conflicts, which resulted in the deaths of around 50, 000 people, the PKK, which formally renounced its 40-year armed struggle in May, is currently transitioning from armed rebellion to democratic politics.

However, it urged Turkiye to take the necessary steps to advance the process, which first erupted a year ago when Ankara gave its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan an unanticipated olive branch.

It stated that “democratic politics requires the legal and political steps necessary by the process,” as well as the democratic integration and freedom laws that are required to participate in democratic politics, must be immediately put in place.

In line with Ocalan’s historic call, the organization has stated that it wants to continue fighting for the rights of the Kurdish minority.

The group detonated a first batch of weapons in northern Iraq’s mountains in July, which Turkiye described as “an irreversible turning point.”

A new chapter in history has opened today, according to the statement. The doors of a great, powerful Turkiye have been wide open today, according to Erdogan at the time.