Kurdish PKK fighters destroy weapons at key ceremony

SULAIMANIYAH: Thirty PKK fighters destroyed their weapons at a ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, two months after the Kurdish rebels ended their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.

The ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region’s longest-running conflicts.

Analysts say the PKK’s military weakness makes disarmament a face-saving move, while allowing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to claim victory over a decades-long insurgency.

Outside the ancient cave of Casene, a group of 30 PKK fighters, both men and women, gathered on a stage in their khaki fatigues, their faces uncovered in front of an audience of around 300 people, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

One by one, they walked down to lay their weapons in a pit which was then set on fire. Most were rifles but there was one machinegun and one rocket-propelled grenade.

As they looked on, people in the crowd started cheering while others could be heard weeping.

“In order to ensure the practical success of the ‘peace and democratic society’ process… we voluntarily destroy our weapons as a step of goodwill and determination,” read a PKK statement.

“We wish that this step will bring about peace and freedom.”

‘IRREVERSIBLE TURNING POINT’

Ankara hailed the ceremony as an “irreversible turning point” on the road to peace.

“The laying down of arms by PKK militants in Sulaimaniyah — a milestone of the third stage of the ongoing disarmament and decommissioning process — marks a concrete and welcome step,” a senior Turkish official said.

“We view this development as an irreversible turning point.”

The ceremony followed months of indirect negotiations between jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan and Ankara that began in October with Erdogan’s blessing, and were facilitated by Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party.

The PKK took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil that sparked a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.

But more than four decades on, the PKK in May announced its dissolution, saying it would pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkiye since 1999.

Tensions rose ahead of the ceremony as two drones were shot down overnight near Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga bases, one in Sulaimaniyah, and the other in Kirkuk, according to officials who did not say was behind the attacks.

No casualties were reported.

‘POWER OF POLITICS’

Throughout the morning, cars could be seen pulling up to Casene cave, a symbolic location that once housed a Kurdish printing press, Firat news agency said.

In the crowd were officials representing Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, veteran Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), an AFP correspondent said.

Also present were representatives of the Turkish intelligence agency, DEM lawmakers and journalists.

“I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons. And I urge you to put this principle into practice,” Ocalan said this week, pledging the disarmament process would be “implemented swiftly”.

Erdogan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK began laying down its weapons.

“The process will gain a little more speed when the terrorist organisation starts to implement its decision to lay down arms,” he said at the weekend.

In recent months, the PKK has taken several historic steps, starting with a ceasefire and culminating in its formal dissolution announced on May 12.

The shift followed an appeal on February 27 by Ocalan, who has spent the past 26 years in solitary confinement on Imrali prison island near Istanbul.