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Erdogan signs law for conditional pardon of Kurdish militants
AP News • • world
Key Points:
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed a law introducing a conditional pardon for thousands of Kurdish militants as part of a peace initiative with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
- The law will take effect only after Turkey’s National Security Council confirms the PKK has fully disbanded and disarmed, and it suspends certain prison sentences and investigations for PKK members for five to ten years.
- A new committee will oversee the PKK’s disarmament process, with its first meeting scheduled for next week.
- The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, announced its decision to disband last year following a call from its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is excluded from the pardon.
- The decades-long conflict between Turkey and the PKK has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths since the 1980s.
