IRAQ — The Kurdish militant PKK said Sunday it was withdrawing all its forces from Turkey to northern Iraq, urging Ankara to take legal steps to protect the peace process.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey in May, drawing a line under four decades of violence that has claimed some 50,000 lives.

“We are implementing the withdrawal of all our forces within Turkey,” the PKK said in a statement read out at a ceremony in the Qandil area of northern Iraq, according to an AFP journalist present.

It released a picture showing 25 fighters — among them eight women — who had already traveled there from Turkey.

But it urged Turkey to take the necessary legal steps to advance 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.

“Significant steps need to be........

© The Times of Israel