Dozens of PKK terrorists handed over their weapons in a ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant first step toward ending a decades-long armed campaign against the Turkish state.
PKK terrorists destroyed their weapons at a ceremony in mountainous Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, an AFP correspondent said.
"PKK terrorists, four of whom were commanders, burned their weapons," said the correspondent who was present at the brief ceremony in a cave near the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its armed struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned ringleader Abdullah Öcalan.
After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Türkiye and the wider region.
Around 40 PKK terrorists and one senior figure handed over their weapons at the ceremony in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. The PKK is based in northern Iraq after being pushed well beyond Türkiye's frontier in recent years.
The ceremony was held inside the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 km (37 miles) northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq's north, according to an Iraqi security official and another regional government official.
The arms were destroyed later in another ceremony attended by Turkish and Iraqi intelligence figures, officials of Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, and senior members of Türkiye's opposition DEM party - which also played a key role in facilitating the PKK's disarmament decision.
Ankara has taken steps toward forming the commission, while the DEM and Öcalan have said that legal assurances and certain mechanisms were needed to smooth the PKK's transition into democratic politics.
Erdoğan has said his government would not allow any attempts to sabotage the disarmament process, adding he would give people "historic good news".
Ömer Çelik, a spokesman for the ruling AK Party, said the disarmament process should not be allowed to drag on longer than a few months to avoid it becoming subject to provocations.
