PKK urges Turkiye to free Ocalan to advance peace process

Supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK, take part in a demonstration demanding the release of Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan, seen on banner in foreground, in front of the United Nations Headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. Ocalan, the founder of the PKK, was captured in Kenya after being forced to leave a Greek diplomatic mission there in 1999, and was sentenced to death for leading an insurgency fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's southeast that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1984. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

A senior Kurdistan Workers’ Party commander has told AFP the group will take no further steps in the peace process with Turkiye, urging it to advance negotiations by freeing PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan.

“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.

The group has two demands, he added.

“First, the freedom of leader Apo (Ocalan)... without this, the process will not succeed. The second is the constitutional and official recognition of the Kurdish people in Turkiye.”

In the depths of a well-ventilated bunker carved into the mountains, PKK commanders and fighters in military fatigues sat on the floor of a heated room adorned with portraits of Ocalan and some of the group’s fallen fighters.

Others chatted in the tunnel that branched off to rooms that included designated quarters for women fighters.

AFP conducted interviews with commanders using cameras supplied by the group itself, as external technical equipment was not allowed to be used for security reasons.

Female senior commander Serda Mazlum Gabar told AFP that “as long as the leadership is inside, the Kurdish people cannot be free. Nor can we, as guerrillas, feel free.”

“Our path to freedom passes through the freedom of our leadership.

“We want the leadership to meet with the people,” she added.

Ocalan, 76, has led the peace process from his cell on Imrali island, where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.

Turkish lawmakers from a committee tasked with fleshing out the peace process with the Kurds visited Ocalan earlier this week.

Historic steps

In recent months the PKK, which maintains a rear base in the mountains of northern Iraq, has taken several historic steps towards ending its decades-old fight against Turkiye that has claimed some 50,000 lives.

In May, the PKK formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkiye.

It held a ceremony in northern Iraq during which 30 fighters burned their weapons in a symbolic move to show their commitment to the peace process.

Last month, the group said it had begun withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil into northern Iraq.

Earlier this month, the PKK announced their forces had withdrawn from a key border area in northern Iraq.

“We have committed to not using weapons against the Turkish state,” Malazgirt told AFP on Saturday.

Ankara began indirect talks with the PKK late last year, with Ocalan in February urging the group’s militants to lay down their weapons and embrace democratic means to advance the Kurdish cause.

Turkiye has set up the cross-party parliamentary committee to lay the groundwork for the peace process and prepare a legal framework for the political integration of the PKK and its fighters.

“By establishing this committee, the Turkish state has made a positive move, but it is not the only action needed. We are closely monitoring this mission,” Malazgirt said.

The PKK says it wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority.

“If the ground for democratic politics were opened in Turkiye, we would all want to carry out this struggle there. We are ready for this,” Serda Mazlum Gabar said.

But “the guerrilla is also the prototype of free life, the prototype of free humans, the prototype of free women”, she said.

It “must also restructure itself, undergo restoration, and make revolutionary changes.

“Therefore, we can continue the struggle with different methods, but the guerrilla does not end.”