 transition away from armed conflict will not be broadcast live and will be closed to the press.){kind=link}
An upcoming ceremony marking the symbolic start of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) transition away from armed conflict will not be broadcast live and will be closed to the press, the Turkish services of Deutsche Welle and BBC reported on Tuesday.
The event, expected to take place between July 10 and 12 in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, was initially planned as a public gesture to be attended by journalists, civil society groups and political representatives.
The Fırat News Agency published a statement from the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the PKK-linked umbrella group that oversees affiliated movements across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, which cited last-minute security concerns as the reason for the decision to bar press access and cancel live coverage.
Instead, a screen will be set up near the ceremony site to broadcast video recordings of the event after it concludes.
Journalists and invited guests will be permitted to gather in this secondary area and will be provided with footage and access to comment from observers.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) confirmed the change in a separate statement and said the ceremony had been relocated to a different area as a precaution against potential provocations.
The party noted that prior accreditation for journalists remains valid for the screening area, where press workers will be able to report from the ground.
The developments come amid a new political process in the works since last year that led to PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan’s February 27 call for the armed group to disband and abandon armed conflict.
The Turkish government refers to the initiative as the “Terror-Free Turkey” process, while the DEM Party calls it the “Peace and Democratic Society Process.”
The PKK declared in May that it was ending its decades-long armed campaign and said it would take initial steps through a symbolic ceremony.
Speaking to The Associated Press, PKK spokesperson Zagros Hiwa said a group of PKK members would come down from the mountains and destroy their weapons in the presence of civil society monitors.
Hiwa said the move was meant to signal a formal end to armed activity but added that further steps would depend on Ankara’s response.
In a statement last week the PKK called for an end to Öcalan’s “isolation” on İmralı Island and demanded legal and constitutional reforms to allow reintegration of former fighters into democratic politics.
The “isolation” of Öcalan, who has been jailed in a high-security prison on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999, refers to his inability to speak with his lawyers for years.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday that peace efforts would accelerate once the PKK begins implementing its decision to abandon armed conflict.
A DEM Party delegation visited Erdoğan at the presidential palace in Ankara on Monday, one day after visiting Öcalan in prison.