Turkey demands PKK militants in northern Iraq to disarm immediately

Iraqi News

07-03-2025

Ankara – Turkey on Thursday insisted the PKK and all groups allied with it must disarm and disband 'immediately', a week after a historic call by the Kurdish militant group's jailed founder.
'The PKK and all groups affiliated with it must end all terrorist activities, dissolve and immediately and unconditionally lay down their weapons,' a Turkish defence ministry source said.
The remarks made clear the demand referred to all manifestations of Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, costing tens of thousands of lives.
Although the insurgency targeted Turkey, the PKK's leadership is based in the mountains of northern Iraq and its fighters are also part of the Kurdish-led SDF, a key force in northeastern Syria.
Last week, Ocalan made a historic call urging the PKK to dissolve and his fighters to disarm, with the group on Saturday accepting his call and declaring a ceasefire.
The same day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that if the promises were not kept, Turkish forces would continue their anti-PKK operations.
'If the promises given are not kept and an attempt is made to delay… or deceive… we will continue our ongoing operations… until we eliminate the last terrorist,' he said.
Since 2016, Turkey has carried out three major military operations in northern Syria targeting PKK militants, which it sees as a strategic threat along its southern border.
Ankara has made clear it wants to see all PKK fighters disarmed wherever they are — notably those in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which it sees as part of the PKK.
The SDF — the bulk of which is made up of the Kurdish YPG — spearheaded the fight that ousted Islamic State extremists from Syria in 2019, and is seen by much of the West as crucial to preventing a jihadist resurgence.
Last week, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi welcomed Ocalan's call for the PKK to lay down its weapons but said it 'does not concern our forces' in northeastern Syria.
But Turkey disagrees.
Since the toppling of Syria's Bashar al-Assad in December, Ankara has threatened military action unless YPG militants are expelled, deeming them to be a regional security problem.
'Our fundamental approach is that all terrorist organisations should disarm and be dissolved in Iraq and Syria, whether they are called the PKK, the YPG or the SDF,' Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan's ruling AKP, said on Monday.
Ocalan's call also affects Iraq, with the PKK leadership holed up in the mountainous north where Turkish forces have staged multiple air strikes in recent years.
Turkish forces have also established numerous bases there, souring Ankara's relationship with Baghdad.
'We don't want either the PKK or the Turkish army on our land… Iraq wants everyone to withdraw,' Iraq's national security adviser Qassem al-Araji told AFP.
'Turkish forces are (in Iraq) because of the PKK's presence,' he said, while pointing out that Turkey had 'said more than once that it has no territorial ambitions in Iraq'.