Erdogan says Turkey will rush legal framework to disband PKK

Tayyip Erdogan said on June 24 that his government was working on a legal framework to speed the Kurdistan Workers Party’s disbandment and would bring the legislation to parliament without much delay. The move put the terms of surrender, and the shape of any settlement after it, at the center of Turkey’s Kurdish file.

The stakes are high because the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984 and has fought the Turkish state for more than four decades. The conflict has killed roughly 40,000 people and cost about 3 trillion Turkish lira, according to Reuters-linked policy analysis. Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s jailed founder, has been held on Imrali prison island since 1999 and on February 27 urged the group to disarm and disband. The PKK followed with a congress in northern Iraq on May 5-7, 2025, and announced on May 12, 2025 that it would dissolve its organizational structure and end armed struggle.

What remains unresolved is how that declaration turns into a durable exit from war. The draft framework is expected to address verification of weapons handover, reintegration for fighters and civilians returning from northern Iraq, and the legal status of disarmed members. Those details will determine whether the process becomes a controlled transition or another temporary pause in a conflict that has repeatedly revived after political openings collapsed.

The latest push comes after the peace track slowed sharply once the Iran war and the regional instability around it froze momentum. Turkey’s parliament had made recommendations on advancing the process just two weeks before that slowdown. Earlier peace efforts, including a long ceasefire period in the 2010s, collapsed amid violence and mutual distrust, leaving Ankara wary of repeating a process that relies only on back-channel contacts.

Kurdish politicians have already warned that the government is moving too slowly. The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party has pressed for faster, more concrete steps, and separate June reporting said party officials had opened talks with Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş on the draft framework law. Some versions of the proposal under discussion are said to be a short framework text, with implementation to be handled later through separate legislation or commissions.

That structure matters because the draft will show whether Ankara is building a narrow legal path for demobilization or laying the groundwork for broader Kurdish political rights. Nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli has added momentum by publicly backing PKK disarmament, but the final test will be whether parliament can lock in verification, reintegration and legal relief without reopening the mistrust that has defined every previous attempt.