Kurdish PKK announces it is withdrawing fighters from Turkiye to Iraq

The PKK had formally renounced its 40-year armed struggle in May and then held a symbolic ceremony in July at which it destroyed a first batch of weapons.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said it is withdrawing all its forces from Turkiye to northern Iraq as part of a peace process with Turkiye, bringing an end to a months-long disarming process following a four-decade armed conflict that killed tens of thousands of people.

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

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It released a picture showing 25 fighters – among them eight women – who had already travelled there from Turkiye.

The PKK, which formally renounced its 40-year armed struggle in May, is currently making the transition from armed rebellion to democratic politics in a bid to end one of the region’s longest conflicts, which killed some 50,000 people.

But it urged Turkiye to take the necessary steps to push forward the process, which began a year ago when Ankara offered an unexpected olive branch to its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

“The legal and political steps required by the process … and the laws of freedom and democratic integration necessary to participate in democratic politics must be put in place without delay,” it said.

The group has said it wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan.

In July, the group held a symbolic ceremony in the mountains of northern Iraq, at which it destroyed a first batch of weapons, which was hailed by Turkiye as “an irreversible turning point”.

“Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history. Today, the doors of a great, powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the time.

The end of Turkiye’s conflict with the armed group could have wider consequences for the region, including with neighbouring Syria, where the United States is allied with Syrian Kurdish forces, which Ankara deems a PKK offshoot.