BBC World Service
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)When the outlawed Kurdistan Staff’ Occasion (PKK) introduced final month that it could disband and finish its decades-long insurgency in opposition to Turkey, Leila hoped she may quickly be reunited together with her son.
Three years in the past, the previous sandwich vendor left residence to hitch the group – proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US, UK and EU – within the distant Qandil Mountains, close to Iraq’s border with Iran.
Aside from two movies he is despatched, the final in March, Leila hasn’t seen him since.
“After I first heard in regards to the announcement I used to be very pleased,” says Leila, whose identify now we have modified as a result of she fears reprisals from the group.
“However as time has handed, nothing has modified.”
For 40 years the PKK has been at conflict with Turkey in a battle that has killed greater than 40,000 folks, a lot of them civilians, and is among the longest-running on this planet.
Some households the BBC spoke to bitterly condemned the PKK, whereas others spoke proudly of how members of the family had died preventing for the group and felt this sacrifice had paved the best way for peace talks.
The PKK’s announcement that it could cease preventing was seen as a historic second for Turkey, its Kurdish minority, and neighbouring nations into which the battle has spilled over.
However since then, no formal peace course of with Turkey has begun and there’s no official ceasefire in place, with reviews of killing persevering with on either side.
Getty PicturesInitially arrange with the intention of preventing for an impartial Kurdish state in Turkey, the PKK has, for the reason that Nineties, shifted focus to demand larger cultural and political autonomy for the Kurds.
Leila, who lives within the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Area of Iraq, which borders Turkey, says she hadn’t even heard of the PKK till her son, an Iraqi-Kurd in his twenties, got here residence sooner or later speaking in regards to the group’s ideologies.
She accuses the group of “brainwashing” her son, convincing him they had been defending the ethnic Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group within the Center East however do not need a nation state.
Leila says over time her son began to turn into extra impartial, making his mattress, washing his garments and doing the dishes. She now believes the PKK was getting ready him for the powerful life he would quickly be residing within the mountains.
On the day he left, he got here residence with three “comrades” to inform his mom he was going to the mountains to start six months of coaching.
She says she repeatedly tried to dissuade him from becoming a member of the PKK however he was decided to go.
“He was so decided. Arguing with him would have been of no use.”
Since then, Leila says she has usually visited the Qandil Mountains within the hope of catching a glimpse of her son, however has by no means seen him.
“If they simply let me see him every year, I’d be pleased,” she says.
The BBC travelled to the Qandil Mountains, having been granted uncommon entry by the PKK to movie there.
The mountains, that are sparsely populated and recognized for his or her pure magnificence, assist protect 1000’s of PKK fighters from Turkish air strikes.
The journey took hours of driving up slender, bumpy roads, in an space the place there are few indicators of inhabitation aside from a handful of farmers and shepherds.
Because the BBC approached a PKK checkpoint, we noticed massive footage of the group’s chief and founding member Abdullah Ocalan – imprisoned by Turkey in solitary confinement since 1999 – displayed throughout the mountains. However when the BBC reached the checkpoint, the PKK denied us entry.
We had been later informed by PKK authorities that talks are underway with the group and they didn’t need media consideration.
They didn’t say what the talks had been about, although Iraq’s Overseas Minister Fuad Mohammed Hussein final month informed the BBC discussions could be going down with the PKK, Turkey, Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Authorities to debate how the group’s weapons can be handed over.
Disarmament ‘not up for dialogue’
Up to now, the phrases of a doable peace deal between Turkey and the PKK are unknown.
The PKK informed the BBC in a written assertion that it’s honest and critical in regards to the course of, insisting its chief, Ocalan, have to be freed.
“The ball is now in Turkey’s court docket. A peace course of can not develop primarily based on unilateral steps,” mentioned Zagros Hiwa, the spokesman for the PKK-linked Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella group of regional Kurdish organisations.
However in a doable signal of the hurdles forward, a senior native commander, who’s a part of the second line of management inside the group in Iraq, informed the BBC in a written assertion that in his view disarmament is “not up for dialogue”.
Nonetheless suspicious about Turkey’s intentions, he provides that “once we handle the explanations of the armed battle, weapons can be of no use for either side”.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s obvious willingness to convey an finish to the battle with the PKK has been interpreted by some as a bid to draw Kurdish assist for a brand new structure to increase his 22-year-rule, which he denies.
He has described the PKK’s resolution to disband as an necessary step in direction of “our purpose of a Turkey with out terrorism”.
Writing on X, the Turkish president mentioned a brand new period was about to start after “the elimination of terror and violence”.
Getty PicturesFor some households whose family members had been killed preventing for the PKK, the thought the battle may quickly finish is bitter-sweet.
Kawa Takoor was 21 when he was killed two years in the past. His sister, Rondek Takoor, who lives in Iraqi Kurdish metropolis of Sulaimaniya, final noticed him within the Qandil Mountains in 2019.
Talking from the household residence, the place pictures of Kawa adorn the lounge partitions, Rondek says her brother’s dying modified the household’s life. “I at all times dream about him,” she says with tearful eyes.
Rondek, who’s in her twenties, nonetheless remembers the final dialog they’d collectively.
“I requested him if he want to return residence with me and he mentioned ‘by no means’. He even requested me to hitch him within the mountains,” she says.
For Rondek and her household, who’re pro-PKK, the group disbanding could be each a second of “satisfaction and ache, particularly after our big loss”.
She believes that “it is the sacrifices we have made and the martyrs we have misplaced, that paved the best way for leaders to speak peace”.
What occurs subsequent is unsure.
There are questions on what would occur to 1000’s of Turkish PKK fighters and whether or not they could be allowed to reintegrate into Turkish society.
Turkish officers have but to say whether or not these fighters can be handled as criminals and face prosecution. However Turkish media reviews have urged fighters who have not dedicated crimes in Turkey may return with out concern of prosecution, although PKK leaders could be pressured into exile to different nations or required to remain in Iraq.
Additionally it is unclear what the group disbanding would imply for different Kurdish teams, notably in north-east Syria, which Turkey regards as being off-shoots of the PKK.
Getty PicturesThroughout the Syrian civil conflict, Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Syrian fighters launched a collection of offensives to seize border areas held by a Syrian Kurdish militia referred to as the Individuals’s Safety Items (YPG).
The YPG dominates an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias referred to as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which drove the Islamic State group out of 1 / 4 of Syria with the assistance of a US-led multinational coalition.
The YPG says it’s a distinct entity from the PKK, however Turkey rejects that and proscribes it as a terrorist organisation.
Erdogan has mentioned the PKK’s resolution to disband ought to “cowl all extensions of the organisation in Northern Iraq, Syria and Europe”. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi mentioned the PKK’s resolution would “pave the best way for a brand new political and peaceable course of within the area”.
Nonetheless, he has additionally mentioned that the PKK’s disarmament doesn’t apply to the SDF, which signed a separate deal to merge with the Syrian armed forces in December.
In Iran, the PJAK group, which can also be a part of the KCK, has informed BBC Turkish that it helps the “new course of” in Turkey, however that it isn’t planning to disarm or disband itself.
PJAK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and Iran. There was a de facto ceasefire between the group and the Iranian authorities since 2011.
Turkey says the PJAK is the Iranian arm of the PKK, however the Kurdish teams deny this.
‘This metropolis has introduced me nothing however ache’
For moms like Leila, all of the complexities of politics and the intricate steadiness of army powers throughout the area are irrelevant. What she cares about is having her son together with her once more.
“He’ll come again residence when he will get bored with the cruel life within the mountains, sooner or later he’ll realise that he can take it no extra.”
If this occurs, Leila plans to go away their residence metropolis the place her son was recruited by the PKK.
“This metropolis has introduced me nothing however ache.”
