Kurdish militant official says Turkey has stalled peace talks, blaming a lack of reforms

IRBIL, Iraq -- A peace initiative to end a decades-long conflict with Kurdish militants has been effectively “frozen” by the Turkish government, a top militant commander said on Thursday.

He and another officials with the group accused Ankara of failing to enact legal and political reforms needed to move the process forward, contradicting recent optimistic statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Murat Karayilan, a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and one of its most senior leaders, said in an interview with the PKK-linked ANF news outlet that his group had taken major steps as part of the peace effort, including declaring a ceasefire and an end to its armed struggle.

“The process is currently frozen. That’s what we’ve been able to see and what has been reported to us," the outlet quoted Karayilan as saying. “We, as a movement, have fulfilled our responsibilities at this stage. It is clear that we have done everything necessary for the government to take action.”

There was no immediate reaction from officials in Turkey to Karayilan’s remarks.

Last year, the PKK declared that it would disarm and disband as part of the new peace effort with Turkey, following a call by its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The PKK then staged a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq, and later announced that it was withdrawing fighters from some key locations in Turkey to Iraq.

Earlier this year, a Turkish parliamentary committee recommended a series of reforms to advance the initiative, including the reintegration of PKK members who renounce violence, while stressing that legal steps should be tied to state security institutions verifying that the group has surrendered its weapons.

Karayilan said that Turkish government and ruling party officials had set April as the month in which legislation advancing the process would be brought to parliament, a deadline that has now passed with no bill introduced.

He accused the Turkish government of failing to implement even basic measures recommended by the committee, including releasing opposition politicians and activists from prison.

Ocalan himself also remains imprisoned. Karayilan said that the PKK’s decision at its 12th Congress to end its armed struggle and dissolve itself was approved on the condition that Ocalan personally manage the disarmament process, meaning, he said, that the group’s own internal mandate can't move forward while its leader remains in prison.

In a separate statement to The Associated Press, Zagros Hiwa, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Communities Union, a political organization linked with the PKK, said that the organization had taken several steps in line with Ocalan’s call. But Hiwa said that Turkish forces continue to operate in parts of northern Iraq, government-appointed administrators still occupy the seats of elected Kurdish mayors in Turkey and that thousands of Kurdish and Turkish political prisoners remain jailed.

“The Turkish state has taken no legal and political steps towards peace and has been continuing war-time policies under new rhetoric,” he said, adding that Ocalan remains under solitary confinement on Imrali island off Istanbul, where he has been imprisoned since his capture in 1999.

Hiwa accused the Turkish government of “instrumentalizing” the process to consolidate the governing party's grip on power and boost its standing in upcoming elections, rather than seeking a genuine settlement.

“What happens next totally depends on the attitudes of the Turkish state,” Hiwa said. He warned that the impasse could carry “precarious implications.”

The PKK officials' suggestion that the peace process has stalled contradicted a statement by Erdogan, who a day earlier told legislators from his governing party, that the peace efforts were moving in a positive atmosphere.

“The process is proceeding as it should,” Erdogan said. “Those who write pessimistic scenarios about the process are acting entirely on their delusions, not on facts.

The PKK has waged an armed insurgency since 1984, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and spilled into neighboring Iraq and Syria. It's designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The group initially sought an independent Kurdish state but later shifted to demands for autonomy and expanded rights in Turkey.

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Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.