Pro-Kurdish party demands guarantee for return of PKK fighters to Turkey
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Turkish parliament forms PKK peace talks commission
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Thursday called on the Turkish parliament to ensure that those members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who are willing to lay down weapons and return to Turkey will not face legal issues.
The Turkish parliament last Friday announced the establishment of the 51-member peace process commission on Friday. Its mandate is to provide the necessary legal and political frameworks for the disarmament of the PKK - a key step in the ongoing peace talks between the group and the Turkish state.
"The commission must take on a historic responsibility. Why do I call it historic? Because we are currently talking about Turkey's democratic deficiency,' Aysegul Dogan, DEM Party spokesperson, told Rudaw.
Thirty PKK fighters laid down their arms in a ceremony in Kurdistan Region's Sulaimani province on July 11.
'If they want to return to Turkey, if they want to engage in politics, how should they do so? If they want to study, how? Some of them left school and joined the armed struggle. And today they say, with their own free will and political leadership's call, they are ready to make a decision. If they want to return and rejoin civilian life, how can this be done? This commission must lay out the legal and political conditions for disarmament,' stated Dogan.
The multiparty commission is expected to include 21 members from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), ten from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), and four each from the DEM Party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Smaller parties will occupy the remaining seats.
The DEM Party spokesperson noted that the commission cannot make decisions but recommend them to the parliament.
"This commission cannot legislate on its own, because the Turkish parliament would not [allow that]. But the commission can make legal recommendations and refer them to the relevant parliamentary bodies. After those recommendations are made, they can be discussed in Turkey's general assembly, debated, and potentially passed into law. That is our hope,' she stated.
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