ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are expected to resume a withdrawal from Turkey to the movement’s base in the Qandil mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan by this autumn if the Turkish parliament adopts a bill designed to revive the stalled peace process. The bill, which could open the way for a formal ending of a four decades-long PKK insurgency against the Turkish state, was sent to parliament late last month by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The conflict is estimated to have cost 40,000 lives and billions of dollars. Erdogan wants the legislation enacted before August when he is due to stand in presidential elections as candidate of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The measure is expected to boost Erdogan’s support among Turkey’s Kurds, who have come to regard him as the best hope of gaining a lasting agreement on Kurdish rights in the country. The AKP leader launched the peace initiative in secret more than a year and a half ago, initially authorizing intelligence agents to open talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan at his jail cell on the prison island of Imrali. These contacts led to a framework for a peace deal that Ocalan announced in March last year in a Newroz message read to hundreds of thousands of people in Diyarbakir, the capital of Turkey’s Kurdish region. As part of the agreement, PKK fighters then began a staged withdrawal to the Qandil mountains, near the border between the autonomous region administered by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iran. The peace process later stalled, however, as Erdogan confronted domestic social unrest in Turkey and the deterioration of the security situation in neighbouring Syria. Each side accused the other of hindering the peace process. The PKK halted the withdrawals, blaming the AKP of not living up to commitments made to Ocalan. Although a fragile ceasefire held, Ankara meanwhile accused the PKK of not proceeding as agreed with the evacuation of its fighters. The deadlock has stirred renewed unrest in Kurdish regions, including clashes between protestors and soldiers in Diyarbakir province last month. Erdogan announced his candidacy for the Turkish presidency just days after the government submitted the bill, a reform package that would give parliament a role in the peace process for the first time. According to the Turkish deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay, the measures envisaged in the new bill would eventually allow former PKK fighters to return home and reintegrate into normal life. "We are nearing the stage when these problems are solved, violence ends, people put down their weapons and come down from the mountains to return to normal social life," Atalay said last week after the bill was submitted. The presidential poll will be held on August 10. Although the post is ceremonial, Erdogan has expressed the view in recent years that he would favour a system that gives more executive power to the president. The Kurdish vote could be decisive for him in the contest with his main rival Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, an academic and former head of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), officially nominated by the two main Turkish opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Parliament, where Erdogan’s AKP has a majority, is expected to pass the bill on July 25. The outcome of the peace process will also determine the fate of Ocalan, who retains great authority over the PKK despite being in jail since 1998. The movement recognizes Ocalan as its leader and has declined to name a replacement. Since his arrest, senior PKK cadres have been elected as acting leaders in his absence. The PKK, still deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. and other Western states, is commanded from its base in the Qandil mountains. The KRG authorities have cooperated in the evacuation of PKK fighters as part of their support for the peace process in Turkey.
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