A key ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Sunday that all “affiliated groups” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) must disarm, as part of a historic ceasefire deal with Ankara, Agence France-Presse reported.
Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, last month called on his group to disband and end more than four decades of conflict with Turkey.
But Ankara also wants all PKK fighters to lay down their arms wherever they are, in particular those in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces — the bulk of which is made up of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The SDF leadership welcomed Öcalan’s call on February 27 to disband but said it did not apply to its forces.
“The PKK terrorist organization and its affiliated groups must immediately and without preconditions lay down their weapons,” said Devlet Bahçeli, head of the hardline Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Bahçeli is considered the key sponsor of the talks between Ankara and the PKK, after he offered a surprise gesture of peace if Öcalan rejected violence.
“The fact that the YPG and other similar terrorist groups claim to be exempt from this call … is completely contradictory to the leadership of the organization,” Bahçeli said in a statement.
The PKK announced a ceasefire after the call by Öcalan, who has been imprisoned for the past 26 years, saying that “none of our forces will carry out any armed operations unless they are attacked.”
Since 2016 Turkey has conducted three major military operations in northern Syria targeting PKK militants, which it sees as a strategic threat along its southern border.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, has waged an insurgency since 1984.
Its original aim was to carve out a homeland for Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s population of 85 million.
Since Öcalan was jailed in 1999 there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed, which has cost more than 40,000 lives.