AKP spokesperson says PKK disbandment must include all affiliates

ANKARA

The ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) spokesperson has said PKK must fully dissolve along with all of its affiliates as part of the government's ongoing "terror-free Türkiye" initiative.

"The PKK terrorist organization, with all its branches and extensions, illegal structures, financial centers and propaganda centers... must lay down its arms and dissolve itself," Ömer Çelik said Sept. 2 following a top AKP meeting in the capital Ankara, in a veiled reference to YPG.

Led by President and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the talks reviewed the government’s counterterrorism project and the work of a parliamentary commission overseeing the process.

As part of the initiative, PKK first declared a ceasefire at the call of its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan and later announced its decision to disband and disarm. In July, the first group of members burned their weapons at a ceremony in northern Iraq.

PKK is listed as a terror group by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union. Ankara also considers YPG to be its Syrian offshoot.

"We stated at the very beginning of this process that PKK's... all addresses, all branches and extensions, some legal-looking and illegal structures in Europe, must be dissolved and must lay down arms," Çelik said.

"No one should view the existence of any terrorist organization or their collaboration with others as a gain for their own affiliation, political, ethnic or sectarian identity. Terrorism offers no gain."

Çelik said there would be no negotiations on Türkiye's "core state principles" during the process.

"Our citizens can rest assured... Our fundamental goal of achieving a terror-free Türkiye is the principle of one homeland, one nation, one state, one flag," he said. "There is no compromise, no bargaining, no negotiations on these."

Meanwhile, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli renewed calls for the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to comply with an agreement on their integration into the new Syrian army.

He voiced concern over reports that PKK members were gradually joining YPG and SDF.

"The call.. made by the founding leader of PKK is binding on all components of the separatist terrorist organization," Bahçeli said.

“The SDF/YPG's constant preoccupation with new impositions, their sharing of lists of demands ranging from autonomy to independence and their transformation into a U.S.-Israeli puppet are all precursors to a grave chaos."

Bahçeli said that if SDF "does not strictly comply with the requirements of the integration deal, a military intervention by the joint will of Ankara and Damascus will become inevitable."

"Heroic acts would achieve what words cannot," he wrote. "None of my Kurdish brothers will fall into the hands of Zionism, nor will they be sacrificed to the indoctrination and savage plans of the genocidal."