Turkey’s Erdogan Meets Pro-Kurdish Party to Discuss PKK Disarmament

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a media conference at a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025. Matthias Schrader/AP Photo

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a closed-door meeting on July 7 with leaders of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party to discuss the disarmament of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist group.

In a statement released after the July 7 meeting, the DEM Party said that “the mutual will to move the process along” had been emphasized at the meeting with the Turkish leader.

It did not provide further details, and there was no immediate comment from Erdogan’s office.

It was the DEM Party’s second meeting with Erdogan—the first was in April—since Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s jailed leader, called on the group to lay down its arms.

Since the mid-1980s, the PKK has waged a violent insurgency against the Turkish state in which tens of thousands of people, including countless civilians, have been killed.

Turkey, along with both the United States and the European Union, has long regarded the PKK as a terrorist group.

On the same day as the meeting with Erdogan, held in Ankara’s presidential palace, the Erbil-based Rudaw news agency reported that a “first batch” of PKK fighters—it said numbering between 20 and 30—were “expected to lay down their weapons in Sulaymaniyah in the coming days.”

Erbil is the capital of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Sulaymaniyah, located near the Iranian border, is the Kurdish region’s second city.

The Epoch Times could not independently verify the news report.

But early last week, Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, suggested the group could begin laying down its arms “in a matter of days.”

‘Turning Point’

In February, Ocalan, the PKK’s long-imprisoned leader, issued a landmark appeal to PKK fighters to lay down their arms.

Soon afterward, the PKK leadership, which is based in the Kurdish region’s Kandil Mountains, responded positively to Ocalan’s call.

In May, the Iraq-based leadership restated the group’s intention to lay down its arms at an extraordinary congress held in northern Iraq.

In return for disarmament, both the PKK and Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party expect Ankara to initiate a program of democratic reform.

“At this historic turning point, all democratic political institutions, especially the Grand National Assembly [parliament] of Turkey, must take responsibility for resolving the Kurdish Issue and achieving genuine democratization in Turkey,” the DEM Party said in a statement posted on its website in June.

Turkey’s third-largest political party, the DEM Party has played a central role in advancing the PKK disarmament process by mediating among Ocalan, the group’s Iraq-based leadership, and the Turkish authorities.

On July 6, the DEM Party had another meeting with Ocalan, who, it said in a statement, “attached great importance” to the meeting with Erdogan, describing it as “historic.”

Ankara, meanwhile, describes the PKK disarmament drive as a campaign to make Turkey “free of terror” rather than as a “peace process” with the banned group.

Ocalan, 75, founded the PKK in 1978 with the stated aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the Middle East. The group later moderated its stance, demanding Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey, where ethnic Kurds predominate.

In 1999, Ocalan was captured by Turkish security forces and has been confined to an island prison near Istanbul ever since.

Despite his lengthy imprisonment, he is still widely regarded as the PKK’s de facto leader.

Supporters hold an image of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan as they gather to watch a live reading of his statement in Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Feb. 27, 2025. Metin Yoksu/AP

Challenges

Turkey, the United States, the EU, Iraq, and Iran have all welcomed the PKK’s stated call to disarm, which Turkish officials—including Erdogan—have described as a “historic opportunity.”

In mid-May, U.S. State Department spokesman Thomas Pigott called the decision a “victory for civilization,” stressing that Washington had regarded the PKK as a “foreign terrorist organization” since 1997.

“It is the United States’ hope that this announcement [by the PKK] will lead to increased stability for the region,” Pigott told reporters.

In June 30 remarks cited by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, Erdogan said the disarmament process had made significant headway.

He added, however, that “certain elements”—in both Turkey and the PKK—were engaging in “sabotage efforts aimed at dynamiting progress.”

He did not elaborate, nor did he identify the “elements” in question.

Reuters contributed to this report.