The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Monday said it had withdrawn its fighters from areas in the Zap region, along the Kurdistan Region of Iraq's border with Turkey, to other areas as part of a peace process between the outlawed group and Ankara.
“The movement’s leadership announces that guerrilla forces, which were at risk of conflict in the Zap region … had withdrawn to other areas,” the PKK-affiliated Firat news agency said. “We believe that this new step will serve as a solution to the Kurdish issue and the peace and democratisation of Turkey.”
The announcement comes after a historic decision last month to withdraw all forces from Turkey to the Kurdistan Region and the group's headquarters in the Qandil Mountains.
In the statement, the PKK said that its decision to withdraw from Zap is part of “conflict-preventing measures in areas along the border where there was a risk of conflict.” The area has been subjected to clashes and strikes in recent years. It also has symbolic importance for the PKK as the place where its headquarters were initially located before moving further east to the Qandil Mountains.
“As of the evening of November 16, our forces in the Zap region that had been at risk of conflict have withdrawn to other suitable areas,” the statement said. The group also described its latest move as a “significant practical contribution” to the peace process, calling on Turkey to follow suit.
The developments are aimed at advancing a peace process under way with Turkey to its second phase after the group's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan in May called for disarming and disbanding. The group is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and European Union.
In July, a small group of PKK fighters began the process by giving up their weapons at a ceremony in northern Iraq to mark the end of their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.
Founded in the late 1970s by Ocalan, the PKK took up arms in 1984, carrying out a string of attacks on Turkish soil that led to a conflict that has cost more than 40,000 lives.
But in May, the PKK said it would switch to a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with the call by Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkey since 1999.
