Al -Jazeera Net Correspondents
7/11/2025–|Last update: 11:22 (Mecca time)
Ankara In a historical shift paving the way for a new stage of the peace track with the Turkish government, the Rabreen region of Sulaymaniyah Governorate in the Kurdistan region of Iraq witnessed today, Friday, the start of the first steps to disarm the Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters.
This step comes in response to the invitation of the arrested party leader Abdullah Ocalan, who demanded that he be imprisoned on the island of Amali to end armed action that has continued since the 1980s, and to enter into democratic political action.
For more than 4 decades, the PKK has fought an armed rebellion against the Turkish state that killed about 40,000 people, while Ankara and Western countries classify it as a “terrorist organization”.
However, the path witnessed a decisive shift since last February, when Ocalan launched a public appeal to his fighters to stop the fighting, followed in May, the party’s announcement of its official dissolution.
A road map towards peace
This shift came as a result of multiple steps and stations that contributed to creating the climate for this moment. On October 1, 2024, Dolht Bahcheli, leader of the National Movement Party – during the opening of the legislative session of the Turkish Parliament – announced the “national reconciliation” initiative, and called on the representatives of the Equality and Democratic Party for the Kurdish peoples to “open a new peace page.” The next day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported the initiative, stressing the need to expand the scope of political dialogue.
Bahcheli returned on the 22nd of the same month to demand the removal of isolation from Abdullah Ocalan, considering that he alone is able to declare the end of “terrorism” and the party dissolved, and a day later, MP Omar Ocalan – the cousin of the Kurdish leader – visited an Ameri prison for the first time in about 3 and a half years, stressing that “Ocalan has the ability to transform the path of conflict towards politics if the isolation is raised from it.”
On November 26, 2024, a delegation from the People’s Party submitted the first official request to visit Ocalan, and on December 27, the Turkish Minister of Justice approved the meeting. The next day, a leadership delegation from the party-Berfar Bolden and Sri Sri Thriya Onder-visited the Kurdish leader in Emali, as they quoted him as confirming that “strengthening the Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood is a historical responsibility.”
Movements and consultations
The visits were resumed on January 22, 2025, followed by the visit of an expanded delegation on February 7, which included Ahmed Turk, Tulay Hatemoglu and Tunger Bakira, and held in -depth consultations with Ocalan on the new path.
On February 27, Ocalan issued a historic statement in which he called on all factions to throw weapons, dissolve the PKK and move to political action, considering that “time has passed the armed struggle.”
The party quickly responded to the invitation, and announced on March 1, the ceasefire, and the announcement of an official truce on the third of the same month, was followed, to officially start the peace process.
On April 10, a delegation from the Peoples Party met with President Erdogan to discuss obstacles facing the path and discuss the mechanisms of its transcendence. After internal consultations, the PKK announced on May 12 to resolve its armed organization permanently. The President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, welcomed the move, describing it as “historical and opens a new chapter of coexistence.”
On May 14, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein announced Baghdad and Erbil’s readiness to cooperate with Ankara to organize the weapons delivery mechanism.
Precise transitional stage
As the summer approaches, the field arrangements for the transitional stage began to implement what was agreed between the two sides.
On June 30, Furat News published a statement confirming that “Ocalan is the only one capable of directing fighters to hand over their weapons,” Kurdish sources reported that between 20 and 30 fighters will participate in the delivery ceremony scheduled between the third and tenth of July.
On the same day, a spokeswoman for the Peoples Party, Aisha Gul Dogan, announced that “the historical step related to disarmament will take place next week.”
This coincided with Turkish moves on the ground, intelligence chief Ibrahim Qalan Erbil visited on July 1, and met the leaders of the region to discuss arrangements for the next stage.
On July 6, a delegation from the Peoples Party returned to visit Ocalan in his prison, and then met the next day with President Erdogan to consult on the future of the political process.
On the eighth of July, they went to Baghdad, where he met Prime Minister Muhammad Shi’a Al -Sudani and Foreign Minister Rashid Maarouf. Iraqi sources confirmed Baghdad’s full support for the initiative.
On July 9, Abdullah Ocalan appeared in a video recording for the first time since his arrest in 1999, and declared “the page of the armed struggle” and called for “the full trend towards democratic policy and respect for the rule of law.”
On Friday, July 11, 2025, the arms delivery ceremony was launched in the city of Sulaymaniyah, where a spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party Party announced that a group of fighters will destroy their weapons under the supervision of civil institutions, while an Iraqi Kurdish official confirmed that some weapons will symbolically burn “to reassure the Turks that peace is irreversible.”
