ANKARA, February 28. /TASS/. All groups associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), banned in Turkey, including in Iraq and Syria, should lay down their arms, said Omer Celik, Spokesman of the ruling Justice and Development Party.
"Some are now trying to talk about exceptions in the context of Turkey's call for the terrorists to disarm. They are trying to present this as a question concerning only the organization in Iraq. No, when we say "a terrorist organization," we mean that it is necessary to eradicate it completely, including all its elements in Iraq and Syria, regardless of the name. That is, no matter what they are called - the PKK, the SNC (People's Self-Defense Forces, the Syrian Kurds - TASS), the PDS (Democratic Union Party - TASS), and the SDF (Forces of Democratic Syria - TASS), all elements of this terrorist organization must lay down their arms," Celik said.
He added that "there will be no negotiations or compromise with the terrorists."
Celik said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly touched upon the issue of resolving the Kurdish problem since the mid-2000s. "He approached this issue not as an ethnic, but as a democratic issue. He made this topic personal for himself. The president fought hard to lift the bans on our Kurdish citizens," he said.
On February 27, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence, called on all PKK-affiliated formations to lay down their arms and end the armed confrontation with the Turkish state, and on the PKK to disband. His appeal was made public by deputies of the official pro-Kurdish DEM party.
The commander of the Syrian SDF, Mazlum Abdi said he supported Ocalan's call, but added that this message "has nothing to do" with the SDF.