A Kurdish military group that has been waging an armed struggle in Turkey for many years announced today that its fighters in northern Iraq will begin handing over their weapons, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed struggle, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, called in February for the group to convene a congress and formally dissolve and disarm.
Ocalan, 76, still wields significant influence in the Kurdish movement despite spending the past 25 years in prison, the AP said. His call for an end to hostilities is an important step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.
“A group of rebels will come down from the mountains and lay down their weapons in an effort to demonstrate their goodwill for peace and democratic politics,” the PKK said today.
The ceremony, expected to take place between July 10 and 12 in the city of Sulaymaniyah in the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, will be the first concrete move toward disarmament, the AP notes.
A Kurdish official in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about 40 PKK members are expected to hand over their small arms to the regional government.
The regional government is dominated by two parties – The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The KDP governs the regional capital Erbil and the city of Dohuk. The PKK governs Sulaymaniyah. The KDP has good relations with Turkey and is in conflict with the PKK, while the PKK is closer to the PKK.