ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Iraqi government spokesperson said on Friday that Baghdad is willing to receive weapons from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which this week announced it has decided to dissolve itself and end its armed struggle against the Turkish state.
“Iraq is ready to cooperate with Turkey and the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party in receiving weapons," Basim al-Awadi told Rudaw, adding that Iraq has presented "initiatives that it is also ready to deal with this issue from both humanitarian and relief aspects."
He said that a potential PKK disarmament would significantly contribute to Ankara-Baghdad relations and that if the process is done properly “this will certainly be encouraging and a factor in the withdrawal of all foreign forces from northern Iraq, that is, from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq."
The Turkish army has established dozens of bases and outposts in northern Kurdistan Region on the pretext of battling the PKK.
The PKK said on Monday that it had decided to “dissolve its organizational structure and end the armed struggle” against Ankara. The move, widely seen to include its disarmament, has been welcomed by regional and Western countries. No timeline has been set.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told journalists on Wednesday that they have conducted in-depth discussions with the Turkish authorities regarding the PKK’s disarmament.
“There are specific visions, and there will be cooperation between the federal government in Baghdad, the Turkish government, and the Kurdistan Regional Government to deal with this important decision. We hope that this decision will be a step toward achieving peace and stability in Turkey and the region,” he said.
Iraq banned the PKK in March last year ahead of a visit from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the two sides signed agreements in various fields, including security.
A PKK spokesperson said on Friday that the group has not decided to lay down arms yet, saying there has been no change to the security landscape in northern Kurdistan Region where the group is based and battling Turkish forces.
“No one has talked about laying down and surrendering weapons. The caves and tunnels of resistance in Zap and Metina are still surrounded by the Turkish state and the KDP,” Zagros Hiwa, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Community Union’s (KCK) foreign relations department, told the PKK-affiliated Sterk TV.
KCK is an umbrella organization consisting of several groups including the PKK.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is the most powerful political party in the Kurdistan Region and enjoys close relations with Turkey. The PKK has often accused it of supporting Ankara in anti-PKK operations.
“The distance between the guerrilla fighters and the Turkish occupying soldiers is 50 meters, 100 meters. In such a situation, how can one lay down weapons?” asked Hiwa. “Before we talk about laying down weapons, we need to talk about the withdrawal of the Turkish occupying army from the soil of Southern Kurdistan [Kurdistan Region]. It's too early to define this situation as a process.”
Iraqi government spokesperson Awadi said that the mechanism of the PKK’s potential disarmament will be discussed in talks between intelligence agencies of Iraq, Turkey and the Kurdistan Region.
This is not the first time Iraq has been involved in disarming a Kurdish group. A security pact signed between Iran and Iraq in March 2023 saw Baghdad agree to disarm Iranian Kurdish opposition groups and secure the border regions. The groups are being relocated within the Kurdistan Region.
Awadi said Baghdad intends to apply "the same mechanisms that we used with the Kurdish Iranian opposition inside Iraq, including weapons surrender and finding alternatives with the participation of the international community and organizations."
Turkey has named the peace efforts “terror-free Turkey.” During an event in Istanbul on Friday, Erdogan said that the 40 years of war with the PKK has affected the economy.
“We have also suffered a lot economically. We have had to allocate resources of nearly two trillion dollars to this issue. We have faced numerous problems in politics and democracy as well as in our unity and solidarity," he said.
"We have had to grapple with this issue besides other troubles in international relations. Our brotherhood has been harmed because of terrorism. Our development journey proceeded very slowly because of terrorism. Now, we are taking our steps very determinedly and yet very carefully to free our country and our nation from this scourge once and for all. We will not stop until we reach our target. We will definitely achieve the goal of a terror-free Turkey,” he said.
