ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A senior Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) official told The New Region on Saturday that the militant group will not lay down its weapons until a legal framework for the peace process is reached with Turkey.

PKK-affiliated Ronahi TV reported Saturday that the group will take “another historic step” in line with an ongoing peace process between the armed guerillas and the Turkish state.

The fighters are set to make an announcement regarding the reported step during a press conference “soon,” according to Rojnews, another PKK-affiliated media outlet.

Speaking to speculations around the move, a senior official within the PKK’s ranks confirmed to The New Region the PKK will not disarm until certain concerns are addressed. “Without lifting the bans on the Kurdish language and laying the legal groundwork for the process, we will not disarm,” the official said.

“Taking up arms and heading to the mountain was to achieve a goal; we will not disarm until we realize that goal,” the source told The New Region.

The PKK held a congress in May in the Kurdistan Region wherein the group decided to dissolve and disband upon the call of its jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, ending a four-decade armed campaign against the Turkish state that resulted in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides.

In July, dozens of PKK fighters burned their weapons in a historic ceremony symbolizing the disarmament initiative in Sulaimani’s Dukan district.

The New Region has learned from informed sources that Sunday’s move will see the PKK vacate certain positions of strategic interest as a gesture of good will for the process. The armed group is separated by mere hundreds of meters from the Turkish army in certain places.

The disarmament kick-started what is now known as the “PKK-Turkey peace process,” and a “terror-free” parliamentary commission has been established with the participation of all political parties to implement the legal and political measures of the process.

Ocalan, as well as Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), has repeatedly expressed concern over the lack of concrete measures and the failure to establish a political framework to ensure the success of the process. They have also decried the lack of guarantee for the disarmed Kurdish groups and the use of inflammatory language in pro-Ankara media.