DEM Party Demands Legal Framework for Disarming Fighters

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - A year ago, 30 members of the PKK laid down their weapons. They have not returned. And as of Wednesday, no law exists in Türkiye's parliament to tell them, or anyone who follows, what their lives on the other side of disarmament would actually look like.

That legal vacuum is now the central frustration of Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit, deputy chair of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) parliamentary group, who used a media appearance on Wednesday, to issue a direct message to Türkiye's parliament: legislate, or risk squandering a historic opening.

"Parliament must draft a law that clearly defines how those who lay down arms can participate in political and social life, and what the legal approach toward them will be," Koçyiğit said.

Her remarks carry the weight of a deadline that has already passed. The commission report that was supposed to precede legislation has come and gone, she noted, and too much time has already been lost.

The DEM Party lawmaker said parliament must continue working on this issue even through the summer recess, a signal of how urgent she believes the situation has become.

The specific case she raised sharpens the point. July 11 will mark one year since 30 PKK members disarmed.

Not one has returned. Without a legislative framework defining their legal status, their political rights, and the conditions of their reintegration, the act of laying down arms leads nowhere — a fact that cannot be lost on those still weighing whether to follow.

The legislative gap is not for lack of ambition on one side of the aisle. Koçyiğit confirmed that DEM Party has a prepared draft law ready for consideration, and that the subject has been discussed with Abdullah Öcalan as well.

What is missing is a corresponding effort from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

According to Turkish media reports, AKP is in the process of preparing a nine-point draft law that would address the fate of those who disarm and return to Türkiye. But as of Wednesday, no such text has been formally submitted to parliament.

The gap between preparation and presentation has left the legislative track of Türkiye's peace process functionally suspended.

The legal standoff unfolds against a broader rhetorical commitment from Ankara to what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has branded the "Terror-Free Türkiye" initiative. Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi described the process last week as a historic undertaking, insisting that peace efforts would not come at the expense of national security. "The peace process never means weakening the security dimension," he said.

That framing — peace and security as complementary rather than competing objectives — represents Ankara's public posture.

But the DEM Party's frustration points to a harder question: whether the political will to advance the security vision has been matched by an equal will to build the legal architecture that would make disarmament a viable and irreversible choice for those being asked to make it.

Koçyiğit's call for the parliament to act during the summer session is not a procedural preference, it is a recognition that peace processes are not patient. The momentum generated by disarmament gestures, political dialogue, and high-level statements does not hold indefinitely. Each passing month without legislation narrows the window in which those gestures can be converted into durable institutional reality.

Whether AKP presents its nine-point draft, whether DEM Party's own framework finds traction, and whether the two can converge on language that satisfies both the security establishment and the political demands of Kurdish constituencies — these are the questions that will determine whether Türkiye's summer recess is remembered as a pause or as the moment the process began to unravel.