Erdogan says PKK disarmament drive enters its 'final stretch' despite provocations

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that the initiative his government calls "Terror-Free Türkiye" is approaching its final stretch, telling a ceremony in Istanbul that the state-led effort to end militancy had advanced despite attempts to derail it. "Despite all provocations and traps over the past two years, we have made significant progress," he said, according to TRT World.

Erdogan cast the process as a state project rather than a partisan one and pledged that Ankara would deny armed groups the networks that sustain them. "We will cut off, one by one, the lifelines of those who have fed off the terrorism industry for nearly 50 years and are enemies of our nation and country," he said. He added that plans "to pit brother against brother by lighting new fires of discord" had been thwarted through the country's efforts.

The remarks came at a public-sector job placement ceremony held on Veterans Day, Hurriyet Daily News reported. The event assigned jobs to 571 veterans and relatives of veterans and fallen personnel, and Erdogan said the appointments would bring the total employed under such arrangements to 53,179. "God willing, we will complete the final stretch and bring peace and stability to our country and the entire region," he said.

A law with 467 votes and a regional argument

Erdogan pointed to legislation adopted by parliament in August as another important step, noting it had passed with 467 votes, Hurriyet Daily News reported. He also argued that the process had played a strategic role in managing conflicts over the past six months, particularly those involving Iran and the Gulf, linking the domestic settlement to Türkiye's handling of regional crises.

The law in question, passed on Aug. 10, established a legal framework for the disbandment of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Reuters reported that it cleared the 600-seat parliament with 468 votes in favor and that it provides legal protections for many former militants who have not committed specific crimes, while facilitating the suspension of prison sentences for some people convicted of PKK membership. Reuters also noted the law does not address broader Kurdish demands for political and cultural rights, nor the status of the PKK's imprisoned founder, Abdullah Ocalan.

How the process got here

The sequence Erdogan referred to as two years of work began in October 2024, when Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli unexpectedly suggested that Ocalan, jailed since 1999, address parliament. In February 2025 Ocalan called on the PKK to disarm and disband; the group announced an end to its armed struggle in May 2025 and militants symbolically burned weapons at a ceremony in northern Iraq in July 2025. A parliamentary commission was established in August 2025 to prepare the legal ground, according to Reuters. The insurgency, launched in 1984, has killed more than 40,000 people.

What it means

Erdogan's language on Saturday is notable for two reasons. First, the declaration that the process is in its final stretch, made with a specific vote count and an employment figure attached, signals that the government sees the August law as the decisive legislative act and expects the remaining steps to be administrative rather than political. Second, by tying the domestic process to the management of crises involving Iran and the Gulf, Erdogan is presenting the PKK settlement as a foreign-policy asset, not only an internal security gain. That framing matters for Türkiye's neighbors: the PKK's presence in northern Iraq and the Kurdish question in Syria have long shaped Ankara's cross-border operations, and a completed disarmament process would remove one of the main drivers of those interventions. The unresolved items Reuters flagged, including Ocalan's status and wider Kurdish rights, remain the variables that will determine whether the final stretch is short or long.