President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the terrorist group PKK’s shelters in the country were cleared and “only a few caves were left” as operations were ongoing.
Erdoğan’s remarks on Sunday during a meeting with the youth come amid progress in the terror-free Türkiye initiative. The government ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, proposed the initiative for the disarmament of the PKK in 2024, and the government embraced the approach.
The president highlighted the impact of terrorism on Türkiye for decades. “It plagued everywhere, including the universities you study,” Erdoğan told the youth at the event in Istanbul. “Terrorism led to losses of lives, especially in southeastern, eastern Anatolia, where we lost many people. At one point, we felt the need to end this for good. We discussed it with soldiers, law enforcement and discussed how we can build a terror-free Türkiye. All my colleagues affirmed that we could do it. Together with our intelligence organization, the government, we decided to take solid steps,” Erdoğan said.
“Now there are only a few caves left in the southeast and the east, and outside these, we cleared every location. This cleaning operation is ongoing,” Erdoğan stated.
Since the 1980s, the PKK has used caves in rural eastern regions as hideouts while exploiting disillusioned youth in predominantly Kurdish areas as recruits.
Erdoğan pointed out that Parliament took responsibility for a terror-free Türkiye and work was accelerated in this area. He was referring to the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Committee set up at Parliament last August to tackle the matter. The committee is tasked with providing a framework to Parliament on how to proceed with the initiative. The initiative has so far been unilateral, with the PKK announcing disarmament last summer after its jailed ringleader, Abdullah Öcalan, responded to a call by Bahçeli and urged the terrorists to dissolve their group.
“Caves are emptied, weapons are burned and they are still burning them,” Erdoğan said. A ceremony in northern Iraq last summer, where PKK members dumped their weapons into a large pit and burned them, was the first tangible sign of the disarmament. The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) monitors the disarmament process currently. “Now, a calm prevails in southeastern, eastern Türkiye. People are confident, they can freely travel to the mountains to the highlands. Shepherds bring their herds to the pastures,” Erdoğan said. Eastern Anatolia’s mountainous regions have been off-limits to the local population for decades, both due to intense counterterrorism operations and PKK attacks targeting civilians in remote areas.
