ANKARA: A Turkish parliamentary commission voted overwhelmingly today to approve a report envisaging legal reforms alongside the militant Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) disarmament, advancing a peace process meant to end more than 40 years of conflict.
The PKK – designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and EU – halted decades of attacks last year and said it would disarm and disband, calling on Ankara to take steps to let its members participate in politics.
The vote shifts the peace process to the legislative theatre, as President Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s leader of more than two decades, bids to end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people, sown deep discord at home and spread violence across borders into Iraq and Syria.