ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM party will meet President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday to push a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, while Turkish media reported the PKK would start handing over weapons in Iraq this week.
DEM, the country's third-biggest party which has played a key role facilitating the PKK's disarmament decision in May, said it met PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in prison on Sunday.
"(Ocalan) he said he attaches great importance to our delegation's meeting with the president described it as historic," the party said in a statement.
The PKK, which has been locked in a bloody conflict with the Turkish state for more than four decades, decided in May to disband and end its armed struggle. The PKK could start handing over its weapons in the coming days, officials and sources said.
Erdogan will receive the DEM Party delegation in Ankara at 1200 GMT. They are expected to discuss the recent developments in the PKK disarmament process.
Since Ocalan's public call in February to his PKK – based in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq – DEM has held talks with Erdogan and other government officials seeking to push the potential peace process.
Separately, Turkey broadcaster NTV reported that Ibrahim Kalin, the head of Turkey's MIT intelligence agency, will travel to Baghdad on Tuesday for talks with Iraq's president, prime minister and ministers on the process of the PKK handing over its weapons.
Kalin met officials in Iraq's Erbil in recent days for talks on the disarmament. NTV said Kalin would also meet the speaker of parliament Numan Kurtulmus this week to coordinate the parliamentary side of the disarmament process.
It added, citing security sources, that the PKK would start handing over its weapons in groups in Iraq later this week. The process will be carried out in a pre-determined timeline and the weapons will be recorded by authorities, it said.
Since the PKK launched its insurgency against Turkey in 1984 – originally with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state – the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, imposed a huge economic burden and fuelled social tensions.
Ankara has said skirmishes between Turkish soldiers and PKK militants in Turkey's southeast and northern Iraq have continued since Ocalan's call, adding Turkey was still raiding PKK storage areas and bases in the region.