The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said Turkey should ease prison conditions for its founder Abdullah Ocalan, declaring him the group’s “chief negotiator” for any future talks after a decision to disband.
The Kurdish group, blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies, announced on May 12 it had adopted a decision to disarm and disband after a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that cost more than 40,000 lives.
The group’s historic decision came after an appeal by Ocalan, made in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999.
"Real peace requires integration, not exile," Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the PKK's political wing, told AFP in an interview on Monday, adding that "if the Turkish state is sincere and serious about making peace, it should make the necessary legal amendments so that PKK members would be integrated" into society.
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
The disbanding mechanisms are unclear yet, but the Turkish government has said it would carefully monitor the process to ensure full implementation.
Hiwa also said that “we expect that the Turkish state makes amendments in the solitary confinement conditions” to allow Ocalan “free and secure work conditions so that he could lead the process”.
He said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace”, but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees and taken any measure for facilitating the process” and continued its “bombardments and artillery shellings” against the Kurdish group’s positions.
The PKK operates rear bases in Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdistan region, where Turkey also maintains military bases and often carries out air and ground operations against the Kurdish militants.
Turkish media reports have suggested that militants who had committed no crime on Turkish soil could return without fear of prosecution, but that PKK leaders might be forced into exile or stay behind in Iraq.
Hiwa said the PKK objects to its members or leaders being forced to leave, saying that “real peace requires integration, not exile”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)