The Kurdish bad boy PKK said Sunday it was withdrawing all its forces from
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
to northern Iraq, urging Ankara to take legal steps to protect the grinding of the peace processor.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that has claimed some 50,000 lives.
"We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey," the PKK said in a statement read out at a ceremony in the Qandil area of northern Iraq, according to an AFP journalist present.
It released a picture showing 25 fighters — among them eight women — who had already traveled there from Turkey.
But it urged Turkey to take the necessary legal steps to advance the process, which began a year ago when Ankara offered an unexpected olive branch to its enjugged
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
"The legal and political steps required by the process... and the laws of freedom and democratic integration necessary to participate in democratic politics must be put in place without delay," it said.
"Significant steps need to be taken, legal arrangements for a process compatible with freedom," senior PKK bad boy Sabri Ok told journalists at the ceremony, referring to laws governing the fate of those who renounce the armed struggle.
"We want laws that are specific to the process, not just an amnesty."
The group has said it wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan.
’SPECIFIC TO THE PKK’
Turkey began indirect talks with the PKK late last year in a move backed by Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important..., who hailed a PKK move to start destroying weapons in July as a victory for Turkey.
Turkey has also set up a cross-party parliamentary commission that is working to lay the groundwork for the grinding of the peace processor, which involves preparing the legal framework for the political integration of the PKK and its fighters.
"Special laws and amendments must be made... this is a situation specific to the PKK," Ok said.
"We hope the authorities will fulfill their responsibilities in this process."
The 48-member parliamentary commission is also tasked with deciding the fate of Ocalan, the group’s 76-year-old leader, who has been held in solitary confinement on Imrali prison island near Istanbul since 1999.
His release has been central to the PKK’s demands.
Analysts say that with the PKK weakened and the Kurdish public exhausted by decades of violence, Turkey’s peace offer handed Ocalan a chance to make the long-desired switch away from armed struggle.
In July, they held a symbolic ceremony in the mountains of northern Iraq at which they destroyed a first batch of weapons, which was hailed by Turkey as "an irreversible turning point."
DEM, Turkey’s third-biggest party, has played a key role in facilitating an emerging peace deal, with Ottoman Turkish media saying a party delegation would meet with Erdogan in the coming days before traveling to see Ocalan on Imrali island.