ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Sunday announced that it is withdrawing “all of its forces” from Turkey, a historic move amid an ongoing peace process with Ankara. 

In a historic statement, the PKK “announced that they have withdrawn all guerrilla forces in Turkey to the Medya Defense Areas to advance the Peace and Democratic Society Process to its second phase,” the PKK-affiliated Firat news agency said, publishing a statement from the group. 

The Medya Defense Areas encompasses Mount Qandil in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province, where the PKK’s headquarters is located. 

The Sunday announcement was made at a press conference in Qandil and attended by 25 PKK members and senior commanders. 

“These historic steps taken by the Kurdish side, under the leadership of Leader Abdullah Ocalan and the PKK, have profoundly impacted the political and social landscape of Turkey, revealing a new spirit and will toward peace and democratization,” the PKK statement said. 

It based its decision to withdraw all forces from Turkey as a means to “take new practical and groundbreaking steps to eliminate the increasingly serious threats facing Turkey and the Kurds, to lay the foundations for a free, democratic, and fraternal life for centuries to come, and to advance the Peace and Democratic Society Process to a second stage.” 

The PKK further reiterated its determination to carry out the peace process and called on Ankara to follow suit. 

The move comes after PKK-affiliated media reported earlier in the week that the group will take “another historic step” in line with the ongoing peace process with the Turkish state. 

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

In July, dozens of PKK fighters burned their weapons in a symbolic disarmament ceremony in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province. 

The disarmament kick-started what is now known as the “PKK-Turkey peace process,” and a 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 guarantees for the disarmed Kurdish groups and the use of inflammatory language in pro-Ankara media.

A committee from the DEM Party – the main mediator of the peace talks- is set to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan soon. The delegation has already met with Erdogan twice since the peace talks began.

Founded in 1978, the PKK began as a movement for Kurdish independence but later redirected its efforts toward gaining political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Ankara and many Western governments classify the group as a terrorist organization.