"Rudaw": The PKK Begins Disarming This Month

SadaNews - Members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will begin handing over their weapons during a ceremony taking place in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq at the beginning of July, according to the Kurdish Iraqi channel "Rudaw".

"Rudaw" stated that it obtained information from two informed sources in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, indicating that the weapons handover ceremony will take place at the beginning of this month in the Kurdistan Region.

According to the sources, it is expected that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan will issue a new message regarding the peace process in the coming days, after which the implementation of the weapon handover process will begin.

The sources noted that a number of fighters, ranging between 20 and 30 individuals, will hand over their weapons between July 3 and 10 during a ceremony in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, in the presence of the media.

Regarding the fate of the fighters who will surrender their weapons, the sources stated that after the weapons handover ceremony, "they will return to the place where they currently live, meaning they will not return to their cities."

This step comes weeks after the PKK announced in May its decision to disband and end more than four decades of conflict that claimed over 40,000 lives, in response to a call made by Öcalan in February, who has been serving a life sentence since 1999 on İmralı Island off Istanbul.

The Kurds in Turkey hope that the party's decision will pave the way for a political settlement with Ankara, opening up new avenues towards this minority that constitutes about 20% of the population of this country, which has 85 million inhabitants.

"Rudaw" described the weapons surrender process as a step that would serve as a "gesture of goodwill" to move forward in the reconciliation process with Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had stated that he would meet in the coming days with a delegation from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which is pro-Kurdish and has played a significant role in transmitting messages between Öcalan and Ankara.

On Monday, Sertaç Temelli, deputy head of the HDP's parliamentary bloc, predicted that these developments would occur next week, explaining that a delegation of the party's deputies would meet with Erdoğan "on July 8 or 9, after which they will visit political parties and head to İmralı."

Source: "Rudaw"