ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Sunday began withdrawing all its fighters from Turkey, marking the most significant step yet in its peace process with Ankara and moving closer to disarmament after more than forty years of conflict.

“Based on the 12th Congress decisions, we are carrying out the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey’s borders... to the Medya Defense Areas, based on Leader Abdullah Ocalan’s approval,” the PKK said in a statement read during a press conference near its headquarters on Mount Qandil.

“These steps demonstrate our determination and clear stance in implementing the PKK’s 12th Congress decisions.”

The press conference, held in a remote Qandil village in the Kurdistan Region, featured 25 armed PKK fighters - including three commanders and eight women - who had just crossed from Turkey.

While the group did not specify the total number withdrawing, observers estimate between 200 and 300 combatants are involved, according to Agence France Presse (AFP).

The move follows a February call by imprisoned PKK leader Ocalan urging his followers to dissolve the organization and lay down arms. The Kurdish rebel group formally renounced its armed struggle in May and in July symbolically burned a cache of weapons in the Kurdistan Region’s eastern Sulaimani province.

The announcement follows a February call by imprisoned PKK leader Ocalan, urging his followers to dissolve the organization and lay down their arms. The PKK formally renounced its armed struggle in May and, in an early July symbolic act, the group burned a cache of weapons in the Kurdistan Region’s eastern Sulaimani province.

Turkey, which has fought the PKK since 1984 in a conflict that claimed about 40,000 lives - mostly Kurdish fighters - has welcomed the move.

Omer Celik, spokesperson for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said on X that the withdrawal and new disarmament steps are “advances in line with the main goal” of a “terror-free Turkey,” emphasizing the need for the process to continue “uninterrupted.”

The PKK, however, urged Ankara to take corresponding political and legal steps.

“A PKK-specific Transitional Law should form the basis,” and laws ensuring “freedom and democratic integration … should be enacted without delay,” the group told journalists at the Qandil ceremony, adding, that “significant legal arrangements compatible with freedom” are needed, calling for “laws specific to this process, not just an amnesty.”

The PKK also urged Turkey’s parliamentary peace commission to meet directly with Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on Imrali Island near Istanbul since 1999.

“The parliamentary commission overseeing the peace process must go to Leader Apo immediately and listen to him - that’s the key,” PKK spokesperson Sabri Ok said, using Abdullah Ocalan’s nickname.

“He [Ocalan] is the one who initiated and drove this process forward, so his voice must be heard as soon as possible,” Ok added.

Over the past year, Ocalan has received several visits from family members and negotiators from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). In September, he met with his lawyers for the first time since 2019.

The DEM Party - Turkey’s third-largest political force and a key peace mediator - announced it will send a delegation to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday to discuss next steps.