The Kurdish militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) yesterday said it was withdrawing all its forces from Turkey to northern Iraq, urging Ankara to take legal steps to protect the peace process, as it held a ceremony in northern Iraq.
“We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey,” the PKK said in a statement read out in the Qandil area of northern Iraq.
It released a picture showing 25 fighters who had already traveled there from Turkey. The PKK, which formally renounced its 40-year armed struggle in May, is making the transition from armed insurgency to democratic politics in a bid to end one of the region’s longest conflicts, which claimed about 50,000 lives.
Photo: Reuters
However, it urged Turkey to take the necessary steps to push forward the process which began a year ago when Ankara offered an unexpected olive branch to its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
“The legal and political steps required by the process ... and the laws of freedom and democratic integration necessary to participate in democratic politics must be put in place without delay,” it said.
The PKK said it wants to pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a call by Ocalan.
In July they held a symbolic ceremony in the mountains of northern Iraq at which they destroyed a first batch of weapons, which was hailed by Turkey as “an irreversible turning point.”
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS