The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced on Sunday that it is withdrawing all its fighters from Turkey to northern Iraq, marking the completion of a months-long disarmament process aimed at ending a 40-year armed conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The statement was read during a ceremony in the Qandil Mountains, the group’s stronghold in Iraq, where a photo showed 25 fighters, including eight women, who had already relocated from Turkey.
The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, formally renounced its armed struggle in May following a call from its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
The group stated it is implementing the withdrawal to lay foundations for a free, democratic life and urged Turkey to enact legal and political measures without delay to enable its shift to democratic politics.
In July, the PKK held a symbolic ceremony destroying an initial batch of weapons, described by Turkish officials as an irreversible turning point.
A spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party called the withdrawal a strategic and historic step within the Terrorism-Free Turkey process.
Erdogan’s communications director hailed it as a positive development toward the PKK laying down its weapons completely.
The conflict, which began in 1984 and killed over 40,000 people, shifted from demands for independence to greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkey.
The resolution could impact regional dynamics, including in Syria, where Turkey views U.S.-allied Kurdish forces as a PKK offshoot.