By Ece Toksabay
ANKARA, Feb 18 (Reuters) – A Turkish parliamentary commission voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to approve a report envisaging legal reforms alongside the militant Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) disarmament, advancing a peace process meant to end more than 40 years of conflict.
The PKK – designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and European Union – halted decades of attacks last year and said it would disarm and disband, calling on Ankara to take steps to let its members participate in politics.
The vote shifts the peace process to the legislative theatre, as President Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s leader of more than two decades, bids to end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people, sown deep discord at home and spread violence across borders into Iraq and Syria.
The roughly 60-page report proposes a roadmap for the parliament to enact laws, including a conditional legal framework that urges the judiciary to review legislation and comply with European Court of Human Rights and Constitutional Court rulings.
VERIFIED DISARMAMENT
The report’s stated core objectives are a “terrorism-free Turkey” and strengthening democracy. It was approved by 47 lawmakers in the commission, with two rejecting it and one abstention.
Political parties are cited in the report as agreeing that reforms and disarmament should advance reciprocally and in parallel.
However, the section on legal reforms ties implementation to verified PKK disarmament, envisaging a separate and temporary legal framework, a special executive appointment to oversee implementation, and continued judicial scrutiny to avoid perceptions of a general amnesty.
A chapter on democratisation proposals includes a recommendation to comply with ECHR and Constitutional Court rulings. It also calls for clearer anti-terrorism law definitions to exclude non-violent acts, and for expanded freedoms of expression, press and assembly.
CONFLICT SINCE 1984
The commission was formed in August 2025 to support a potential new phase in efforts to end the conflict that has stymied economic development in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.
The PKK’s insurgency since 1984 originally sought an independent state in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, but shifted in recent years to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy.
The militant group has been driven deep into mountainous northern Iraq by the NATO-member Turkish military, pressuring it to seek peace.
The PKK has symbolically burned some weapons and announced it was withdrawing any remaining fighters from Turkey as a first step towards their legal reintegration into society, heeding a call from the movement’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Philippa Fletcher)
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