ISTANBUL: Jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan stressed his determination to see through ongoing peace efforts with Turkiye, while urging Ankara to finalize the legal groundwork for the process in remarks published Wednesday.
His comments came more than six months after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkiye, after four decades of violence that claimed some 50,000 lives on both sides.
“This process is a process of ensuring the participation of Kurds in the (Turkish) republic through legal means and building a democratic republic with the broadest social unity,” Ocalan said in a message released through a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party who visited him a day earlier.
“I would like to reiterate our strong will and resolute stance with respect to this process.”
Ocalan, 76, has led the peace process from his cell on Imrali prison island near Istanbul, where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.
His remarks came just days after a senior PKK commander told AFP the group would take no further steps in the peace process until Turkiye frees Ocalan, whom his followers refer to as “Apo.”
“All the steps the leader Apo has initiated have been implemented... there will be no further actions taken,” commander Amed Malazgirt told AFP on Saturday in a bunker in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.
“From now on, we will be waiting for the Turkish state and they have to be the one taking steps,” he said.
Jailed PKK chief stresses ‘strong’ commitment to peace process
https://arab.news/95m6h
Jailed PKK chief stresses ‘strong’ commitment to peace process
- “This process is a process of ensuring the participation of Kurds in the (Turkish) republic through legal means,” Ocalan said
- “I would like to reiterate our strong will and resolute stance with respect to this process”
Iraq announces complete withdrawal of US-led coalition from federal territory
- The vast majority of coalition forces had withdrawn from Iraqi bases under a 2024 deal between Baghdad and Washington
- US and allied troops had been deployed to Iraq and Syria since 2014 to fight the Daesh group
BAGHDAD: Iraq said on Sunday US-led coalition forces had finished withdrawing from bases within the country’s federal territory, which excludes the autonomous northern Kurdistan region.
“We announce today... the completion of the evacuation of all military bases and leadership headquarters in the official federal areas of Iraq of advisers” of the US-led coalition, the military committee tasked with overseeing the end of the coalition’s mission said.
With the withdrawal, “these sites come under the full control of Iraqi security forces,” it said in the statement, adding that they would transition to “the stage of bilateral security relations with the United States.”
The vast majority of coalition forces had withdrawn from Iraqi bases under a 2024 deal between Baghdad and Washington outlining the end of the mission in Iraq by the end of 2025 and by September 2026 in the Kurdistan region.
US and allied troops had been deployed to Iraq and Syria since 2014 to fight the Daesh group, which had seized large swathes of both countries to declare their so-called “caliphate.”
The militant group, also known as “Islamic State,” was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but continues to operate sleeper cells.
The vast majority of coalition troops withdrew from Iraq over previous stages, with only advisers remaining in the country.
The military committee on Sunday said Iraqi forces were now “fully capable of preventing the reappearance of IS in Iraq and its infiltration across borders.”
“Coordination with the international coalition will continue with regards to completely eliminating IS’s presence in Syria,” it added.
It pointed to “the coalition’s role in Iraq offering cross-border logistical support for operations in Syria, through their presence at an air base in Irbil,” the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
In December, two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria in an attack blamed on IS, sparking fears of a resurgence in the country.
The statement added that anti-IS operations would be coordinated with the coalition through the Ain Assad base in Anbar province in western Iraq.
IS attacks in Iraq have massively declined in recent years, but the group maintains a presence in the country’s mountainous areas.
A UN Security Council report in August said: “In Iraq, the group has focused on rebuilding networks along the Syrian border and restoring capacity in the Badia region.”
