The PKK on Thursday (October 8, 2026) accused the Turkish state of doing little to pursue the peace process that began in 2024, despite the Kurdish group having withdrawn all its combat forces from Turkiye.
Turkiye’s parliament in August voted through a law offering limited amnesty for militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the first legislative step to ending the conflict that has left some 50,000 people dead over decades of bloody conflict.
“We have withdrawn all our armed forces, both within and outside of Turkiye, that could be considered near the border,” the movement told the ANF Kurdish news agency, adding that the move was taken to prevent the government “making any excuses or justifying its inadequate approach to the process”.
“Thus, the requirements of our strategy to end the armed struggle against Turkiye and engage in democratic political struggle have been fully fulfilled,” it said.
“If the value and meaning of these steps we have taken are not understood, and if no steps are taken regarding freedom laws, primarily the freedom of our Leader, this will mean that the Turkish state will continue its century-old policies of denial and destruction”, it said.
The August law did not specify what will become of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, 77, who has spent the past 27 years in solitary confinement on Imrali prison island near Istanbul.
In September, a top Erdogan adviser said Mr. Ocalan would join a disarmament panel as part of the peace process, but said that did not mean Mr. Ocalan would be released.
Mr. Ocalan has played a key role in advancing efforts to end the conflict from his cell with the PKK leadership repeatedly demanding that he be freed as part of the process.
Published – October 08, 2026 11:08 pm IST
