Turkey has given a parliamentary commission until the end of the year to lay the groundwork for a peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the speaker of parliament said Friday.
The PKK announced an end in May to a decades-long insurgency that has claimed more than 40,000 lives, saying it was taking up a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority.
Two months later, its militants began laying down their weapons at a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq, after which the Turkish Parliament set up the cross-party commission to manage the emerging peace process.
The move came after months of indirect contacts between the Turkish government and the PKK’s jailed founder, Abdullah Öcalan.
The commission, which is tasked with preparing the legal framework for the peace process, held its first session on August 5 under the chairmanship of Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş.
He said Friday it would continue working until year’s end.
“The decision we made upon the establishment of the commission was to conclude its work by December 31,” he told the state-run Anadolu news agency, saying the deadline could be extended.
“If necessary, it can be extended by two-month periods at a time.”
The 48-member commission is tasked with overseeing the political integration of the PKK and its militants as well as deciding the fate of its 76-year-old leader, who has been held on the İmralı prison island since 1999.
Among those participating are 25 lawmakers from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its far-right ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), 10 from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and four from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party).
The DEM Party, Turkey’s third-biggest party, has played a key role in facilitating an emerging peace deal, sending a special delegation to hold regular meetings with Öcalan on İmralı Island — the latest of which took place on Thursday.
In a statement on Friday the Imrali delegation said they had held a three-hour meeting with Öcalan about the ongoing process.
“He said democratic society, peace and integration were the three key concepts of this process and that results could be achieved on this basis,” it said.
© Agence France-Presse