‘Laying down arms is last stage’: PKK sets conditions for peace deal with Turkey

Party representative in Iraq says release of prisoners and more comfortable detention for leader Ocalan come first

Murat Karayılan, the head of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, announces its dissolution during the 12th congress at an undisclosed location in northern Iraq. AFP

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has set conditions for the start of its long-awaited peace deal with Turkey after announcing that it will disband and dissolve, ending more than four decades of armed conflict.

PKK’s Firat news agency said on Monday that the group – classified as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU – decided during its 12th congress on Friday to dissolve the party’s “organisational structure, end the armed struggle and end the work carried out under the PKK name”.

It said the process would be managed and carried out by leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the PKK's announcement was “an important stage in terms of the goal of a 'terror-free Turkey'” – a phrase Turkish government officials have used to describe overtures to the PKK.

After the announcement, the “ball is now in the yard of the Turkish government” to start taking the necessary measures that will eventually lead to disarmament, a PKK representative in Iraq told The National.

Mohammed Ali, a member of PKK’s foreign relations committee, said Mr Erdogan “should now issue a statement welcoming the party’s decision”.

“It is believed that there will be a speech by Erdogan in the coming two days maximum,” Mr Ali said.

Afterwards, the Turkish Parliament will convene to “enact certain laws and establish the legal and political basis for the PKK's political struggle within Turkey,” he added. Such laws, he said, need an amendment to the constitution by the Turkish government.

Mr Ali said there are more steps that need to be followed, including the release of thousands of political prisoners in Turkey. That would potentially lead to a political struggle in Turkey, where even members of the Peoples' Democratic Party will be released, he said.

Another of the PKK's demands is to “change the conditions of Mr Ocalan's detention to a more spacious, welcoming and better place, giving him the freedom to communicate with the outside world, increasing the number of people around him, and having a committee to help him lead this future stage,” Mr Ali added.

Mothers of young people who they say were recruited by the PKK hold their sons' pictures in the Turkish city of of Diyarbakir on Monday. Reuters

The PKK is not quite ready to lay down its arms. “Laying down arms is another thing, laying down arms is something that remains in the last stages, meaning if there is no political and legal basis … then you will not lay down arms,” Mr Ali added. “Disarmament will be the last stages … stages of building trust, releasing prisoners, changing laws, building a party with a new political structure, and changing the conditions of Mr Ocalan's detention.”

Mr Ocalan ordered the group's dissolution in February. It came after a months-long process initiated by an ally of Mr Erdogan – the ultranationalist politician Devlet Bahceli – which was aimed at giving Mr Ocalan more freedom in exchange for the PKK’s dissolution.

Since the PKK meeting on Friday, Turkish forces have been launching attacks in northern Iraq, mainly in Amadiyah in Dahuk, said Mr Ali.

“The bombing has not stopped,” he added. “On what basis do we disarm?

“If all attacks in Iraq and Syria will not stop, then talking about peace is empty and meaningless. It is not right to hand sheep over to a butcher and tell him not to slaughter them. This is unacceptable.”