Turkey's parliament has adopted legislation that would see the dissolution of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and grant amnesty to members of the group.
Of the 562 members of parliament present, 468 voted in favour.
Turkish MPs had laid out a proposal seen by The National in February that would formalise the PKK's disbandment. Tens of thousands of insurgents fought a 40-year conflict with the Turkish state until the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called for its dissolution and disarmament last year.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, would be released under the new law.
The violence killed at least 40,000 people, spilt across Turkey’s borders into neighbouring Syria and Iraq, and left an indelible mark on Turkish society. Turkey has long regarded the PKK as its main national security threat and, alongside the EU and US, designates the group as a terrorist organisation.
Senior PKK leaders, based in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, agreed to dissolve the organisation last year, and held a symbolic weapons-burning ceremony. But the process of actually disarming all PKK affiliates geographically located in Kurdish-majority areas across Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq is not a clear-cut process.
The PKK and some Kurdish civilians had demanded Mr Ocalan's release as part of the group's dissolution process. Such a move would be highly unpopular in Turkey, where he is seen as responsible for the deaths of thousands of soldiers and civilians. A number of other people, believed to be in the thousands, are serving prison sentences in Turkey over connections to the PKK.
Created in 1984 to build an independent Kurdish state, the PKK also aimed to gain legal recognition and better rights for the Kurds, who make up one in five people in Turkey.
