The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is in the process of disbanding, denounced yesterday, Sunday, “the mistakes and shortcomings” in the bill regarding the future of its fighters, which will be submitted today to members of the Turkish parliament, while also demanding the release of the historic leader of the Kurdish insurgency.
“This law contains serious errors and flaws. The proposals in the report by the parliamentary committee”—which was tasked with preparing the legal framework for the peace process “regarding democratization and the resolution of the Kurdish issue were not taken into account,” the PKK leadership stated in a press release, which was broadcast by the ANF news agency, considered close to the Kurdish armed separatist movement.
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“The fact that (the draft law) refers only to disarmament, without using the term ‘Kurdish,’ shows that the issue is not being addressed in its entirety,” the PKK continued, demanding guarantees that its fighters who lay down their arms “will be able to participate in democratic political life based on freedom of thought and association,” without running the risk of “being imprisoned for what they say.”
The PKK leadership also stressed that “many of the law’s provisions will remain a dead letter” if the historic leader of the armed movement, Abdullah Öcalan, 77, who has been held in solitary confinement since 1999, is not released.
As for the fate of Öcalan, who in 2025 had urged the PKK to lay down its arms, in response to a peace initiative by the Turkish authorities that had begun around the end of 2024, there has been no official clarification.
The bill provides for the reintegration into civilian life of only a portion of the PKK fighters who lay down their arms, without, however, paving the way for a general amnesty.
The bill, proposed primarily by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP, Islamic right) and the DEM, a party representing the Kurdish minority, provides for the suspension of criminal prosecutions and the enforcement of sentences for perpetrators of certain violations of the law for a period of five to ten years.
Provided there is no repeat offense, once the deadline has passed, the investigations will be closed and the sentences will be considered to have been served, according to a provision of the bill, which has come to the attention of the French Press Agency.
Perpetrators of the most serious crimes—particularly murders—are, however, exempt from this mechanism. Media outlets close to the Turkish government emphasize that this also applies to Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence.
Kurdish opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been in prison since 2016, spoke out in favor of the bill yesterday, Sunday. He said he hopes it will mark a “new critical stage” in the “historic peace effort.”
In the view of the former co-chair of the party representing the Kurdish minority, the bill “will radically transform the fate of our country and our region,” following more than four decades of armed struggle that has claimed at least 50,000 lives, according to conservative estimates.
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Source: APE-MPE
