ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A newly formed parliamentary committee tasked with overseeing a peace initiative with a Kurdish militant group held its inaugural meeting on Tuesday, marking a further significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency.
The 51-member committee, comprised of legislators from most major parties, has been charged with proposing and supervising legal and political reforms aimed at advancing the peace process, following the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK’s, decision to disband and lay down arms.
Fighters from the group began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq last month, the first concrete step toward disarmament.
In his opening remarks, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus called the committee’s launch a “historic turning point.”
“The commission gathered here is no ordinary delegation; it is a historic one, demonstrating the courage to repair our future and the will to strengthen social integration,” he said.
“In this hall, we are witnessing the beginning of a new era, representing the will of the nation,” he said, before the proceedings were closed to journalists.
The committee was on Tuesday expected to decide on how to proceed and to select an official name.
The PKK announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.
The PKK has waged an armed insurgency against Turkey since 1984, initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Over time, the objective evolved into a campaign for autonomy and rights for Kurds within Turkey.
The conflict between militants and state forces, which has spread beyond Turkey’s borders into Iraq and Syria, has killed tens of thousands of people. The PKK is considered to be a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Previous peace efforts between Turkey and the PKK have ended in failure — most recently in 2015.
