Overview

• About 30 PKK fighters symbolically destroyed rifles and explosives inside the Jasana cave near Dukan in northern Iraq on July 11.
• Iraqi and Turkish authorities will oversee a multistage verification process designed to conclude by September.
• The handover follows the PKK’s May announcement to disband and comes after Abdullah Öcalan urged his followers in February to renounce violence.
• Negotiations since October were brokered by the pro-Kurdish DEM Party with support from President Erdoğan and nationalist leader Devlet Bahçeli.
• Fighters opted to destroy their own arms rather than surrender them to any government, signaling goodwill ahead of a broader transition to democratic politics.