President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan highlighted that Türkiye's commitment to protect and preserve its efforts to eliminate terrorism within the country and will not allow those efforts to be undermined, reversed, or sabotaged in order to maintain national security and ensuring that its progress in counterterrorism is not lost.
Speaking at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in the capital, Ankara, Erdoğan said some actors have been trying to sabotage the initiative.
'It appears that certain elements both within the country and within the PKK terrorist group are pursuing sabotage efforts aimed at derailing the terror-free Türkiye process, but our state will not fall into these traps," he told reporters.
The PKK terrorist group is expected to start laying down arms this week.
The terror-free Türkiye initiative was first hinted at by officials, including Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, months before the initiative took its present form. Erdoğan and Bahçeli had repeatedly highlighted ensuring Türkiye’s unity and establishment of "a home front” as they cited that Israel sought to expand its conflict with the Palestinians to the wider region and eventually to Türkiye.
Bahçeli’s call was followed by visits from a delegation from the DEM Party to PKK's jailed ringleader Abdullah Öcalan in the island prison where he is held in the Marmara Sea.
After decades of military operations to eradicate the group, Türkiye initiated a "reconciliation process" in 2013 in a bid to prevent the PKK from justifying its actions. The process saw the reinstatement of the rights of the Kurdish community, but it ultimately collapsed when the PKK resumed its terror attacks after a brief lull.
The new initiative is expected to move forward this summer, with the PKK handing over arms to authorities in Syria and Iraq in a process that will be overseen by Turkish intelligence. After the handover, PKK members not involved in terrorism will be accepted into Türkiye to serve their sentences, according to the media outlets, while the group’s ringleaders holed up in Iraq will likely leave for third countries, the unconfirmed reports say.
Erdoğan also announced that Ankara will host the NATO summit to be held in Türkiye in 2026. He said the summit will take place in July.
"At the 2026 NATO Summit of Heads of State and Government, we will host NATO leaders in our capital, Ankara, and pave the way for the adoption of very important decisions,” Erdoğan said.