Emotions will likely run high this week at Parliament. The National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Committee, the only working branch of Parliament during summer recess, will hold its fourth meeting to discuss the terror-free Türkiye initiative. The initiative, which involves disarmament of the terrorist group PKK after decades of violence, took a new turn earlier this month after the committee was set up by ruling and opposition parties.
Several collectives with “mothers” in their names will speak at the committee’s next sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. All have a relative, mostly sons and daughters who were either tricked into joining the PKK or victims of extrajudicial killings targeting people with alleged ties to the group and all are known for their perennial protests.
The committee is tasked with an important and historic duty: overseeing how the initiative is handled and offering guidelines for lawmakers on future bills about the fate of surrendering members of the PKK.
The PKK last month literally burned weapons in a highly symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq as the first concrete phase of disarmament and is expected to fully abandon arms by the end of 2025. The initiative will then move on to a discussion on the status of the group as cessation of acts of terrorism will pave the way for a new future for PKK. This “future” will likely involve integration of the group’s members into a new life, either in Türkiye or abroad and the committee aims to put a legal framework to this new process.
The initiative largely progresses as a chain of events involving the PKK and actions of the Turkish state but its backers scrambled to reassure all affected by decades-long campaign of terrorism, namely, its victims. The committee will also hear them in this week’s sessions. Veterans of law enforcement and military injured in counterterrorism operations or attacks by the PKK, and families of PKK victims will be hosted by the committee, which earlier held a closed session with ministers of defense, interior and intelligence chief. Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş whose ministry is charged with caring for terror victims and disadvantaged communities, will also make a presentation at this week’s sessions.
Media reports said foundations and associations representing thousands of families and veterans will attend the next meeting of the committee, which will then move on to hear from “other side” of the issue, that is, families of PKK members and sympathizers who “disappeared” or brainwashed to join the group.
Representatives of the “Diyarbakır Mothers” will be among them. This informal group of mothers launched an unprecedented sit-in in the eponymous Turkish province in 2019, in a bid to protest the PKK’s recruitments of their children as young as 15. The site of their sit-in was the Diyarbakır offices of the now-defunct Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) they accused of tricking their children to join the PKK. Their quiet protest soon grew into similar protests in southeastern cities that suffered from PKK attacks and propaganda in the past and along with mothers, fathers and other family members joined protesters. Their protest, supported by the government, is credited with surrender of 62 PKK members who fled the group’s camps in Iraq.
A time of grieving mothers
On Wednesday, the Saturday Mothers and the Peace Mothers, two other informal groups consisting of women, will speak at the committee’s session, before speeches by representatives of several human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
The Saturday Mothers took their name from the day of the protest they held every week near Galatasaray High School in Istanbul’s fabled Istiklal Street since 1995. Originally a protest over alleged killing of a young Alevi man after his detention that year during notorious Gazi neighborhood incidents in Istanbul, the protest later grew to include families of people who fell victim to extrajudicial killings or “disappearances” during a dark chapter in Türkiye’s counterterrorism history in 1990s. The Peace Mothers, formed in 1996, is largely comprised of Kurdish women with relatives or children who joined the PKK voluntarily and advocate a peaceful settlement of what they called the “Kurdish question.” For years, the PKK exploited past grievances of the Kurdish community, who were deprived of their rights, particularly the freedom of education in their own language and positioned itself as a so-called legitimate defender of those rights and ultimate ambition of creating a “Kurdistan.”
The committee first convened on Aug. 8 with the participation of lawmakers from most parties, including the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), a key actor in the initiative due to its intricate links to the terrorist group. The opposition Good Party (IP) abstained from joining the committee. The IP is among several small parties opposing the initiative.
Although it is not authorized to draft bills, the committee will issue recommendations to Parliament, which may subsequently discuss and adopt them as bills. One such proposal is on the status of the PKK. Media outlets reported that the ruling party would suggest redefining the PKK as “a terrorist organization in the process of dissolution and disarmament,” and that might further accelerate the initiative that began last year.
The committee is expected to wrap up work by the end of this year, though this may be extended based on developments.
Media reports stated that the AK Party planned to introduce a separate law, rather than amend the counterterrorism laws, exclusively for this initiative. The current Turkish Penal Code has no articles on the dissolution of terrorist groups, although past amendments and regulations allowed lenient sentences for surrendered terrorists. The planned bill will also serve as a guideline for the dissolution of other terrorist groups, media reports say.
A recent report by Sabah newspaper says disarmament continues in secrecy, and Turkish officials closely monitor it and record the sites where arms were abandoned. Türkiye expects the process of disarmament to move forward faster than examples abroad, such as the disarmament of the ETA in Spain or the IRA in Ireland.
Soon, authorities expect the evacuation of Makhmur and Sinjar, both occupied by the PKK, sites that have hosted both members’ families and armed members of the terrorist group. The Makhmur camp is the oldest for PKK members and was set up in 1998 in the eponymous town. It primarily housed PKK sympathizers who left Türkiye in the 1990s, as well as dangerous PKK members. Unconfirmed media reports say the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, sent a message to residents of the camp and urged them to prepare for imminent evacuation. The report by Sabah says families hailing from Türkiye who lived in Makhmur under the control of the PKK would be allowed to return home.
Türkiye is considering reintegration measures for PKK members not involved in any crimes and who volunteered to abandon arms, according to the Sabah report, but more than three dozen members of the group of senior cadres and some 300 members in lower ranks will not be allowed to return to Türkiye. These include PKK terrorists known to authorities and involved in masterminding or participating in acts of terrorism. Türkiye will allow them to stay in Iraq or Syria for a while, but a permanent stay after the PKK’s complete disarmament is out of question, according to the reports. The Sabah report also says they would be “advised” to leave for Europe or some African countries with good ties with Türkiye.
