ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A Turkish parliamentary commission tasked with drafting a legal framework for the peace process between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Thursday said it will submit a proposal to the assembly outlining the next steps of the process.

“The commission will submit to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey a framework that defines the steps to be taken after the organization's [PKK] self-dissolution,” said Numan Kurtulmus, Turkey’s parliament speaker and head of the commission.

“Tremendous progress has been made so far within this framework,” Kurtulmsu added.

A Turkish parliamentary commission has been established to create a legal framework for the peace process, with its sessions being held confidentially.

Kurtulmus stressed that the Turkish parliament “will implement the legal arrangements required by this process,” noting that the framework has been confirmed by the security forces after the PKK’s move to disarm. He described the Kurdish group’s move as “an important threshold.” 

On Monday, Kurtulmus said that once Ankara's intelligence and security agencies have confirmed that the PKK has disarmed, the country will go into a phase of legal reforms to secure the peace process.

A senior PKK source told The New Region on Saturday that the militant group will not disarm "without [Turkey] lifting the bans on the Kurdish language and laying the legal groundwork for the [peace] process."

The Kurdish language was banned in Turkey from the 1920s until the early 1990s. The restrictions have gradually been lifted since the early 2000s, but it is still not an official language, with only Turkish enjoying such status.

The PKK has repeatedly urged Turkey to take constructive steps to move the peace process forward.

Earlier on Monday, Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) - the main mediator of the peace talks - said the first phase of the peace process between Ankara and the PKK has been completed, a day after the Kurdish group announced the withdrawal of its forces from Turkey.

The PKK on Sunday issued a historic statement, declaring the withdrawal of "all guerrilla forces in Turkey" to the Medya Defense Areas in the Kurdistan Region, where the group’s headquarters in Qandil Mountain is located.

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the DEM Party have repeatedly expressed concern over the lack of concrete measures to establish a political framework ensuring the success of the peace process. On Sunday, a senior PKK commander urged Turkey to release Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on Imrali Island since 1999.

Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), initiated the renewed peace process in October last year by urging Ocalan to address the Turkish parliament and call on his group to disarm.

A committee from the DEM Party is set to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday. The delegation has already met with Erdogan twice since the peace talks began.