PKK militants to lay down arms next year
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 24
The leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan said the PKK militants will lay down their arms on May 15, 2015, the Turkish newspaper Milliyet reported Dec. 24.
Reportedly, Ocalan said that after the PKK militants lay down their arms, they will leave Turkey and move to the territory of Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq.
Ocalan was arrested in Kenya Feb. 15, 1999 and handed over to Turkish authorities.
Initially he was sentenced to death. However the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for over 25 years and claimed over 40,000 lives.
The UN and the EU listed the PKK as a terrorist organization.
The process of a democratic settlement of the Kurdish problem in Turkey kicked off in 2009, following which a part of the PKK militants left the country’s territory and moved to the neighboring Iraq.
PKK militants to lay down arms next year
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Kurdish rebels threaten renewed violence in Turkey
December 24, 2014
ANKARA, Turkey — A Kurdish rebel commander has warned that fighting in Turkey’s southeast could resume by June if efforts to end a 30-year insurgency make no progress by then, news reports said Wednesday.
Murat Karayilan’s comments came days after Turkish and Kurdish officials declared a “new phase” in the peace process after widespread protests by Kurds in October had threatened to derail the talks.
Karayilan told Iraq-based Roj News that imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan would be freed from prison by April and wiykd attend a congress of his Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, if the talks progress according to a plan drawn up by Ocalan himself. However, Karayilan threatened to resume hostilities before Turkey’s June elections if the government fails to advance the peace process by then. His comments were carried by Turkish and Kurdish media on Wednesday.
“If steps are not taken, we will start the war before the elections,” Karayilan was quoted as telling Roj News.
Turkish Deputy Prime Yalcin Akdogan responded on Wednesday, slamming Karayilan’s comments as “unreal, untimely, inopportune and provocative.”
Turkey began talking to Ocalan in 2012 with the aim of ending the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.
Ocalan declared a cease-fire in 2013 and ordered the PKK to withdraw fighters to bases in neighboring northern Iraq as part of the peace efforts. The cease-fire is still in place but the PKK halted the withdrawal a few months later, saying Turkey had not taken any steps to reciprocate.
Kurds accuse Turkey’s government of using the lull in fighting to its advantage during elections and of not taking any concrete steps to advance the peace process in return.
Ocalan has been serving a life-term in prison on an island south of Istanbul since 1999 but retains influence over his fighters.
Kurdish rebels threaten renewed violence in Turkey - The Washington Post