The commission to be set up within Parliament to work on the “terror-free Türkiye” process will follow the PKK terrorist organization’s disarmament while focusing on legal and administrative regulations, an official said on Wednesday.
The Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) group chair, Abdullah Güler, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the commission’s main focus initially will be the confirmation of the PKK laying down arms and dissolving itself, recording the process and being in close cooperation with security forces.
“In the next stage, if necessary, this committee will make recommendations to the Parliament speaker in terms of both administrative and legal regulations,” he pointed out.
Güler reminded that Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş met with parties that have groups in Parliament and exchanged views.
“Currently, our parliamentary investigative committees have 22 parliamentary members, while our Public Economic Enterprises (KIT) Committee, which has the largest number of parliamentary members, has 35. A committee with this number of members could be formed. This committee would be established to include contributions from independent members, regardless of whether they have a parliamentary group or a political party,” Güler elaborated.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç on Wednesday received a delegation from the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), including Van deputy Pervin Buldan, Şanlıurfa deputy Mithat Sancar and Öcalan’s lawyer Faik Özgür Erol.
Buldan stated following the meeting that the stages of the process were evaluated in both political and legal terms, while emphasizing the importance of Tunç’s role as the committee is about to be established.
Asked whether the release of former DEM Party co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş was also discussed, Buldan said that “every issue has been discussed.”
On the disarmament process, she said: “There's no set timetable, but the process will proceed in specific stages. Therefore, after a ceremony of laying down arms or surrendering arms, a new stage will begin. This stage, of course, is the commission stage. Much remains to be done during the commission stage. The commission will have many duties and responsibilities. Once this is completed, perhaps another stage will follow.”
He said that the commission’s works will have no time limit and is being created through the initiative of the speaker. Working principles and rules will be laid down through negotiations.
A day earlier, Tunç also touched upon the issue, saying that the People’s Alliance is “in full coordination” on the issue. Tunç said that the Justice, Foreign, Defense Ministries and the intelligence organization have been working closely on the process.
DEM Party spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan on Tuesday said: “As the DEM Party, we are aware of the responsibility that comes with this historic step taken for the complete deactivation of weapons and the democratic solution of the Kurdish issue."
She underlined that the commission has to be inclusive and added: "We attach importance to the president's call to all political parties. We believe that all political parties, whether represented in Parliament or not, and all democratic forces must seriously fulfill their responsibilities to take this process one step further."
Doğan also underlined that the new process will have several regional reflections and must be approached with seriousness.
She added that the weapon burning process of the PKK is not only symbolic but also historic, after which politics and civil society must now act.
“A period of armed struggle has ended, we are on the verge of a new democratic beginning.”
The initiative was launched by government ally Devlet Bahçeli, head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who called on the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, to appeal to the PKK to lay down arms last year.
Soon, his call evolved into a new initiative that saw DEM Party lawmakers visiting Öcalan in the island prison where he is incarcerated in the Marmara Sea. As a result and in a landmark development, the PKK in May announced its dissolution and the end of its four-decade terror campaign that cost tens of thousands of lives in Türkiye, as well as in Iraq and Syria. Most recently, in a ceremony across the border in Iraq last week, PKK members destroyed their weapons as part of a peace process.
“Yesterday, the 47-year-old scourge of terror has, God willing, entered the process of ending,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said upon the developments. “Today is a new day; the doors of a great, powerful Türkiye have been flung wide open.” The Turkish president promised tight oversight of the PKK disarmament process and warned Ankara would respond firmly in case the process fails.
