President Barzani worked for years to facilitate Ankara-PKK peace process: Spox
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani has worked since 2022 to pave the way for the ongoing peace talks between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), using diplomatic relations with the international community, his spokesperson told Rudaw on Thursday.
“What we see now has been ongoing for years. I can say that since 2022 and 2023, the President of the Kurdistan Region has been directly in contact through all doors and paths possible to him, sometimes not only with the two main parties in the conflict but through his diplomatic relations with the world and the international community to help them facilitate and pave the way for ending armed conflict in the region,” Dilshad Shahab, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region Presidency, said.
The role of President Barzani and other Kurdish officials in the nascent peace process is clear, with meetings between the Region’s top officials, Turkish authorities, and mediators serving as testimony to this.
The PKK announced its dissolution and an end to its four-decade armed struggle in May, in response to a February call by its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan to end the conflict - which has claimed around 40,000 lives - and pursue a political and democratic path.
While Turkey has welcomed the PKK’s move, it has emphasized the need for the decision to materialize on the ground. Meanwhile, the PKK expects democratic reforms from Ankara as part of the process.
Rudaw was first to report on Monday that the first group of PKK fighters is set to disarm in the Kurdistan Region this month.
The disarmament process is expected to begin in the Kurdistan Region in the coming days, as the first practical step in implementing the PKK’s decision to lay down arms and end its armed struggle against Turkey.
Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met with the Kurdistan Region’s top officials, including President Barzani, in Erbil on Tuesday to discuss the peace process, according to Turkish state media.
Shahab said Kalin’s meeting with President Barzani “mainly focused on the role of the [Kurdistan] Region in the peace process.” They also discussed “all possibilities for the future of this process and the role the Kurdistan Region will play.”
He added, “Steps are heading toward a very good direction. There is great hope that practical steps… will be taken by the PKK. The Turkish state has a plan or program for its parliament to begin practical work.”
Shahab also said that the process, which Turkey calls “terror-free Turkey” has “created great hope and we look to the future of this process with hope. It's worth an important note and we should pause on it that this is ultimately an internal matter of Turkey, but it's worth pausing for us and it's pleasing that both sides, especially the Turkish state, when an internal problem of a country that has long roots and causes many victims and bloodshed and creates much loss of life and material damage and create.”
Saadi Ahmed Pira, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) politburo, told Rudaw on Thursday that any peace agreements between Ankara and PKK will end the bombardment of Kurdistan Region and politically help Kurdish politicians in Turkey.
A short-lived peace process between Turkey and the PKK in 2013 granted Kurds some rights that were previously seen as taboo, such as elective Kurdish courses at schools. Kurds have been culturally, politically, and economically repressed in Turkey for decades.
Shahab said President Barzani played a key role in talks that led to the process at the time.
“Before 2010, when in the heat of tensions and complexities, violence, war, and the use of weapons, even then Mr. Nechirvan Barzani was in his efforts with both sides, directly and indirectly with PKK leaders and directly without hesitation with the Turkish state presidency through all channels possible to him, to pave the way for peace and take steps to end all this destruction, heartbreak, human sacrifice, and devastation created by war, the damages that have befallen the region,” the spokesperson said.
Tuncer Bakirhan, co-chair of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), last month expressed his appreciation for President Barzani’s "contributions to the peace process" between Ankara and the PKK.
"He emphasized the importance of the President’s continued role and support, now and in the future, as he had done in earlier stages, to help ensure the success of the process,” according to a statement from Barzani’s office.
The DEM Party, which mediates the talks between Ankara and the PKK, has sent delegations to President Barzani to discuss the process with him. President Barzani has repeatedly endorsed his support for the initiative.
Bakhtiyar Qadir contributed to this article.