A senior commander of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party said Thursday that the peace initiative aimed at ending Turkey’s decades-old conflict with Kurdish militants has been effectively frozen by the Turkish government, accusing Ankara of stalling on legal and political steps it had pledged to take. The assessment by Murat Karayilan, a co-founder of the PKK and one of its most senior figures, was made in an interview with the PKK-linked ANF news outlet and contradicts recent upbeat remarks from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The process is currently frozen. That’s what we’ve been able to see and what has been reported to us,” Karayilan was quoted as saying. “We, as a movement, have fulfilled our responsibilities at this stage. It is clear that we have done everything necessary for the government to take action.”
His comments came a day after Erdogan told lawmakers from his governing party that the peace efforts were moving in a positive atmosphere. “The process is proceeding as it should,” Erdogan said Wednesday. “Those who write pessimistic scenarios about the process are acting entirely on their delusions, not on facts.” There was no immediate reaction from Turkish officials to Karayilan’s remarks on Thursday.
The PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has waged an armed insurgency since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. After initially seeking an independent Kurdish state, the group later shifted its demands to autonomy and expanded rights within Turkey.
Last year, following a call by its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK declared it would disarm and disband. The group staged a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq and later announced it was withdrawing fighters from some key locations in Turkey to Iraq. A Turkish parliamentary committee earlier this year recommended reforms to advance the initiative, including reintegration of PKK members who renounce violence, while stressing that legal steps should be tied to verification that the group has surrendered its weapons.
Karayilan said that Turkish government and ruling party officials had set April as the month legislation would be brought to parliament — a deadline that has now passed with no bill introduced. He accused Ankara of failing to implement even basic measures recommended by the committee, such as releasing opposition politicians and activists from prison.
Ocalan himself remains imprisoned on Imrali island off Istanbul, where he has been held in solitary confinement since his capture in 1999. Karayilan said the PKK’s decision at its 12th Congress to end its armed struggle and dissolve itself was made on the condition that Ocalan personally manage the disarmament process — meaning the group’s own internal mandate cannot advance while its leader stays in prison.
In a separate statement to The Associated Press, Zagros Hiwa, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Communities Union, a political organization linked with the PKK, said Turkish forces continue to operate in parts of northern Iraq, government-appointed administrators still occupy the seats of elected Kurdish mayors in Turkey, and thousands of Kurdish and Turkish political prisoners remain jailed.
“The Turkish state has taken no legal and political steps towards peace and has been continuing war-time policies under new rhetoric,” Hiwa said. He accused the Turkish government of “instrumentalizing” the process to consolidate the governing party’s grip on power and boost its standing in upcoming elections, rather than seeking a genuine settlement. “What happens next totally depends on the attitudes of the Turkish state,” he added, warning that the impasse could carry “precarious implications.”