Security
This development comes within a highly delicate security and political context surrounding the peace file and the future of field relations between the concerned parties, as the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) issued an official statement confirming the completion of the withdrawal of all its forces from inside Turkish territory and its border areas, alongside the destruction of a number of tunnels and military fortifications, coinciding with a strongly worded warning to the authorities in Ankara against procrastination or prolonging the requirements of the ongoing peace process. The party's leadership reviewed within the details of its statement the main milestones of the peaceful initiative, pointing out that the party's leader Abdullah Ocalan responded on October 23, 2024, to Devlet Bahceli's statements by affirming his superior ability to transfer the state of ongoing conflict to a political and legal ground, a move that constituted the true starting point for the current peace path. The aforementioned statement added that based on the appeal launched by Ocalan, all military operations were suspended on February 27, 2025, for the party to announce later in May of the same year the termination of the armed struggle directed against Turkey. This was followed by a prominent field development in July represented by the leadership of the "Kurdistan Communities Union" (KCK) and 30 of its cadres burning their weapons, in addition to the actual fighters withdrawing from the Turkish borders in order to fully engage in political struggle. The party emphasized in the context of its statement that the past two years witnessed a complete halt of armed confrontations inside Turkish borders, and the failure to shed the blood of any Kurdish or Turkish youth during this period, which clearly highlights the great historical value of this peaceful path. In evaluating the Turkish governmental reactions, the statement clarified that despite the formation of a parliamentary committee dedicated to addressing the Kurdish issue and submitting an official report in this regard, the ruling political authority has not taken any tangible practical step leading to a solution, adding that the framework law was not issued according to Ocalan's aspirations and deliberately marginalized the movement's leadership, coinciding with the continued imposition of strict isolation on Ocalan inside his detention. The Kurdistan Workers' Party was keen to emphasize that in order to avoid giving the ruling party in Turkey any potential pretexts, it withdrew a few days ago all forces that might pose a risk of friction or confrontations inside Turkey, and also destroyed four combat tunnels and fortifications belonging to it in Mount "Metina" west of the Zab region, stressing that the Turkish state is no longer able today definitively to pretext the existence of any security or military threat. The party concluded its statement by directing a stern warning to the Turkish authorities, stressing in a decisive tone that if Turkey is truly serious about solving an issue whose roots extend for a hundred years, it must take courageous steps without delay or procrastination, warning at the same time that the ruling party's pursuit to prolong the process and attempt to exploit it to weaken the Kurdistan freedom movement will be considered the greatest historical mistake Turkey has ever committed.
