Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the country has begun a new era as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) started the process to disarm after a four-decade armed conflict that killed more than 40,000 people.
In an address to his party, Justice and Development (AKP), Erdogan said on Saturday that the “scourge of terrorism has entered the process of ending”.
“Decades of sorrow, tears and distress came to an end. Turkiye turned that page as of yesterday,” Erdogan said.
“Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history. Today, the doors of a great, powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open,” the president added.
In a cave in Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq on Friday, 30 PKK members burned their weapons, marking a hugely symbolic step towards ending their armed campaign against Turkiye.
During Friday’s ceremony, senior PKK figure Bese Hozat read out a statement at the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60km (37 miles) northwest of Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdish region of Iraq’s north, announcing the group’s decision to disarm.
“We voluntarily destroy our weapons, in your presence, as a step of goodwill and determination,” she said.
Since 1984, the PKK has been locked in armed conflict with the Turkish state, and decided in May to disarm and disband after a public call from the group’s long-imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
Ocalan said in a video earlier this week, which was recorded in June by groups affiliated with Firat News Agency, that the move to disarm was a “voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law”, calling it a “historic gain”.
Further disarmament is expected to take place at designated locations, which involves coordination between Turkiye, Iraq and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq.