PKK move to test Turkey's Kurdish initiative

Oct 19, 2009, 12:24 GMT

Istanbul -- In what could be a significant move in the decades long Kurdish conflict, a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters Monday were expected to quietly surrender to Turkish authorities.

The surrender comes in the wake of the Turkish government's recent announcement that it will soon unveil a 'democratization initiative' that is designed to give the country's Kurds increased cultural and political rights.

The group includes eight fighters from the PKK's bases in the mountains of northern Iraq and 26 Kurdish refugees, including women and children, from a camp near the Iraqi-Turkish border.

The surrender of the 'peace group' was orchestrated by the PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who made a call for the so-called 'peace groups' to surrender. Ocalan, who was captured in 1999, is currently serving a life sentence on an island prison in Turkey, but continues to exert control over the PKK and Kurdish politics.

The PKK has been fighting Turkish forces since 1982, in a fight that has cost the lives of an estimated 40,000. Although the group originally sought the creation of a separate Kurdish state, it now calls for improved rights for Turkey's Kurds, believed to number between 12 and 15 million.

The surrender was welcomed by Turkish president Abdullah Gul, who told state television 'I hope this opportunity will not be missed.'

'It's not possible to struggle against an enormous state, the Turkish state, and to live in the mountains for a lifetime,' Gul said.

Turkey has a 'repentance law' which allows for the rehabilitation of some PKK members. A prosecutor was among those meeting the surrendering group at the border.

In a written statement, the co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) called on the government to make good use of this symbolic surrender. 'We want to express that we see this step as a historic one,' DTP co-leaders Ahmet Türk and Emine Ayna said.

In its statement, the party noted that a similar surrender took place in 1999, after Ocalan's surrender.

'Ten years later, Turkey once again has the opportunity,' they said. 'It should not spoil it by repeating the same mistakes made in 1999. This is our expectation and our hope.'

In a related development, 23 university students in the eastern Turkish city of Erzincan were arrested Monday after being accused of planning to join the PKK.