PKK Peace Process on Track

Turkey's legal Kurdish political party, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), suggests it will oppose a constitutional amendment that would introduce an “oppressive and authoritarian presidential regime.”
Murat Karayilan, acting military commander of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), speaks during an interview with Reuters at the Qandil mountains near the Iraq-Turkish border in Sulaimaniya, 330 km (205 miles) northeast of Baghdad March 24, 2013. Shattered stone houses recall Turkish air strikes on Kurdish rebels holed up in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. Life is harsh amid the snowcapped peaks, supplies are sparse and armed forays across into Turkey perilous in the extreme. Yet rebel chief Abdullah
Murat Karayilan, acting military commander of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), speaks during an interview in the Qandil mountains near the Iraq-Turkish border in Sulaimaniya, 330 km (205 miles) northeast of Baghdad, March 24, 2013. - REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
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Kadri Gürsel
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Two very important developments in recent days in military and political fields are allowing us to be more optimistic that the peace process the Justice and Development (AKP)-led government began with the Kurdish movement could actually reinforce democracy in Turkey.

The first was an historic event. Murat Karayilan, the military leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), in a news conference covered by about 100 journalists at his main headquarters in the mountainous Qandil region in Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government territory, announced that their armed units would start leaving Turkish territory on May 8.

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