Turkey sees division over Kurdish militants disarmament

Mothers of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) fighters urged Turkey on August 20th to implement amnesty instead of prison sentences to PKK combatants who lay down their arms, according to The Arab Weekly plus agencies.

Known as the “Peace Mothers,” the group urged for an end to tens of years of deaths. “We mothers do not want to cry anymore. Let us bury weapons, not our children,” Nezahat Teke, a Kurdish mother, told lawmakers on behalf of the group.

In 1984, the PKK took up arms against the Turkish state, with the goal of forcing recognition of Kurdish rights through guerrilla warfare in Turkey.

After more than four decades of armed struggle and over 40,000 deaths, the party’s founder Abdullah Ocalan called on the PKK to disarm and abandon armed struggle in February, marking a major shift in the conflict.

In March, the party announced its decision to implement a ceasefire with Turkey. The PKK executive committee stated via the pro-PKK ANF news agency: “To pave the way for implementing leader Apo’s appeal for a democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective today.”

“None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” it added.

In July, a delegation from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party visited Öcalan in prison, ahead of a symbolic weapons-burning ceremony in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, signaling the momentum behind Turkey’s so-called “second peace process.”

The Peace Mothers demands reflect a division within Turkish society, as to whether surrendering militants should be given amnesty or face prison sentences.

“If we want more weapons to be burned, then those people must be given a chance. If they come down from the mountains only to be sentenced to life in prison, how can we persuade others to burn their weapons?” said Teke, wearing a white headscarf, which is the symbol of the Peace Mothers.

Rebia Kiran, another mother, requested that lawmakers implement regulations protecting PKK members from long jail terms. “If you want peace, let them join politics instead of being locked away,” she said.

Yet their appeal came after families of Turkish soldiers and veterans insisted on August 19th that PKK members should be held accountable for their actions by the law. Lokman Aylar, who lost an eye in war, warned that amnesty would reopen old wounds for families of the “martyrs.”

Following the PKK’s decision to lay down its arms, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan during an address to his party, Justice and Development (AKP), said that the “scourge of terrorism has entered the process of ending”.

“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,” he had said.

The Arab Weekly plus agencies, Maghrebi.org