Security officials brief anti-terror panel over PKK disarmament
ANKARA
Senior security officials from the Turkish government have briefed the members of an anti-terror commission at the parliament over the latest developments regarding the disarmament and dissolution of PKK.
The National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission held its second meeting on Aug. 8 under the leadership of parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş and with the participation of the lawmakers from the political parties.
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) chief İbrahim Kalın attended the meeting upon the invitation of the commission for briefing the lawmakers about PKK’s ongoing disarmament process.
Kurtulmuş, in his opening statement, informed that this session of the commission will be closed to media due to the sensitivity of the matters to be discussed by the officials. He also said the minutes of this session will be closed to public access for 10 years and underlined that the participants are not allowed to reflect the issues brought by the officials after the meeting.
“For the good sake of this very historic process, we should all take our steps in the most careful way, express our assessments in a very open way,” he said, adding 98 percent of the Turkish voters are being represented at the commission.
PKK announced on May 12 that it decided to end its four-decades old armed conflict against Türkiye and dissolve itself. The first group of members dropped and burned their weapons in a symbolic event in northern Iraq in early July.
The terror group is expected to continue to disarm in groups in the coming period until the end of this year. In the meantime, the commission at the parliament will address legal and political aspects of the creation of a "terror-free Türkiye."
The commission in its first meeting agreed on the working principles and modalities. It is composed of 51 lawmakers from the political parties represented at the parliament, except for the İYİ (Good) Party.
The commission is expected to equally distribute the three seats that belong to the Good Party to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). The commission also decided to take decisions with a qualified majority.
