PKK rejects ‘exile’ of its members from Turkey after agreeing to disband

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said Turkey should ease prison conditions for its founder Abdullah Ocalan, declaring him the group’s “chief negotiator” for any future talks after a decision to disband.

The Kurdish group, blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies, announced on May 12 it had adopted a decision to disarm and disband after a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that cost more than 40,000 lives.

The group’s historic decision came after an appeal by Ocalan, made in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999.

“Real peace requires integration, not exile,” Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the PKK’s political wing, told AFP in an interview on Monday, adding that “if the Turkish state is sincere and serious about making peace, it should make the necessary legal amendments so that PKK members would be integrated” into society.

Read more: France 24