Thirty outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants destroyed their weapons at a ceremony in mountainous Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, an Agence France-Presse correspondent said.
“Thirty PKK fighters, four of whom were commanders, burned their weapons,” said the correspondent who was present at the brief ceremony in a cave near the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq’s north.
The laying-down-of-arms ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the PKK from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.
Founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil that sparked a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.
But more than four decades on, the PKK in May announced its dissolution, saying it would pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkey since 1999.
Friday’s ceremony was to take place during the morning at an undisclosed location in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan — where most of the PKK’s militants have been holed up for the past decade — near the northeastern city of Sulaimaniyah.
‘Power of politics’
The move is a key step in the months-long indirect negotiations between Öcalan and Ankara that began in October with the blessing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and have been facilitated by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party).
Among those expected to attend the ceremony were several DEM lawmakers, who arrived in Sulaimaniyah on Thursday, and a handful of journalists.
It was not clear whether the ceremony would be broadcast live.
“I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I urge you to put this principle into practice,” Öcalan said in a video message released on Wednesday, pledging that the disarmament process would be “implemented swiftly.”
Erdoğan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK began laying down its weapons.
“The process will gain a little more speed when the terrorist organization starts to implement its decision to lay down arms,” he said at the weekend.
“We hope this auspicious process will end successfully as soon as possible, without mishaps or sabotage attempts,” he added on Wednesday.
In recent months, the PKK has taken several historic steps, starting with a ceasefire and culminating in its formal dissolution announced on May 12.
The shift followed an appeal on February 27 by Öcalan, who has spent the past 26 years in solitary confinement on İmralı prison island near İstanbul.
© Agence France-Presse
