PKK expected to destroy weapons at disarmament ceremony this week

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will begin the process of disarming with a ceremony this week at which it will destroy weapons instead of handing them over to authorities, sources close to the group have told The National.

The PKK, which has waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades, announced in May that it would disarm and disband in response to calls from jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, as part of a peace process with the Turkish state. The group is designated a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the US and the EU.

The ceremony, expected to take place in Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Friday, will be the first concrete step by the group towards disarmament, despite it being largely ceremonial and a gesture of goodwill.

"The weapons will not be handed over to any party or force and will instead be destroyed during the ceremony," a source said. Sources had previously told The National the group would hand over weapons to authorities in Sulaymaniyah. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is the party in charge of the city and wider province.

Another source had previously said a "handful of PKK fighters" would lay down their weapons in a ceremony and hand them over to other organisations in a symbolic move, but the source denied this.

"Yes, the weapons are being destroyed, and this is what was decided," security analyst Jabar Yawar, a former secretary general of the Kurdistan Regional Government's Ministry of Peshmerga, told The National on Tuesday.

The PKK source said the location and date of the ceremony were yet to be confirmed but it would most likely take place on July 11. Mr Yawar suggested the same date and said "there was talk" of Sulaymaniyah Airport being the site. "All of that is just talk so far, because there is no official spokesperson for the ceremony thus far," he said.

The Kurdistan Community Union (KCK), an umbrella group that includes the PKK, had issued invitations to the ceremony to media and political parties in Iraq's Kurdish region. These were rescinded on Tuesday due to the "security situation".

However, "members of the press will be able to follow the ceremony simultaneously from screens set up in another area", according to an official of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), which has been mediating the peace process between Ankara and the PKK.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party last week said the disarming of the PKK would begin "in a matter of days". The coming days would be “extremely important for a Turkey free of terrorism", spokesman Omer Celik said at the time.

The ceremony is part of the wider efforts by the DEM, Turkey's third-largest political party, to resolve the conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives on both sides over four decades.

The party's officials met Mr Erdogan for the second time in four months on Monday, a day after meeting Ocalan in prison.

"It was emphasised that the mutual will to progress the process continues," read a DEM statement after the meeting with Mr Erdogan, whose office also confirmed the meeting had taken place.

DEM officials have been pushing for the creation of a legal framework in Turkey for the PKK's dissolution progress, to clarify the fate of its former members and allow for the possible release of those jailed over links to the militants.

Kurdish leaders in Iraq have also pushed for the process, playing a role in mediation efforts with the PKK. The mountainous areas of the Kurdish region have served as a base for the group's fighters. The area has been subjected to Turkish bombardment and military operations targeting members of the group, causing an uneasy relationship between the PKK and local people, as well as politicians.

Iraq has condemned Turkish operations but it also banned the PKK last year. Turkey's spy chief Ibrahim Kalin met Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani in Baghdad on Tuesday, a week after meetings with Kurdish officials in Erbil, the capital of the region. Mr Al Sudani's office said the two had touched on "shared security issues".

While Turkey has welcomed the PKK's decision, it continues to view the group with suspicion. The PKK has also called for reforms to legislation that would allow its return to Turkey without members facing arrest and for an improvement in Ocalan's prison conditions.

Ocalan's call for disarmament came after a months-long process initiated by an ally of Mr Erdogan, the ultranationalist politician Devlet Bahceli, to offer greater freedom for the jailed leader in exchange for the PKK’s dissolution.