PKK’s weapons-burning ceremony: Who said what that day?

A full year has passed since the historic weapons-burning ceremony held on July 11, 2025 at Casene Cave in Sulaymaniyah, attended by 30 PKK members, which symbolically ended nearly 50 years of armed struggle. We have compiled the behind-the-scenes story of that iconic moment—launched at Abdullah Öcalan’s call and hailed by MHP Leader Devlet Bahçeli as “of extraordinary importance”—along with the testimonies of those who witnessed the ceremony and all the political reverberations of the process up to today.

“The PKK’s founding leadership has kept its word and recognized global and regional threats in time. Days of extraordinary importance are being experienced for Turkey and the region.”

These words belong to MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli, who made this statement immediately after PKK guerrillas, who had dissolved themselves, burned their weapons in a symbolic ceremony on July 11, 2025 at Casene Cave, located within the borders of the city of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The weapons-burning ceremony, which produced iconic images of 30 PKK guerrillas, together with the assessments made by both Bahçeli and President Erdoğan, as well as the ceremony’s international repercussions, led to the formation of expectations regarding the advancement of the process following the ceremony.

At the call of PKK founding leader Abdullah Öcalan, at the “weapons-laying-down” ceremony held in Sulaymaniyah, under the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, a total of 30 guerrillas—15 women and 15 men, including KCK Executive Council Co-Chair Besê Hozat—burned and destroyed their weapons.

With this step, the PKK demonstrated that it had ended its roughly 50-year armed struggle through a symbolic weapons-laying-down ceremony.

Around 150 people attended the ceremony, including politicians, intellectuals, rights defenders, and journalists. The delegation included DEM Party Co-Chairs Tülay Hatimoğulları and Tuncer Bakırhan, DBP Co-Chairs Çiğdem Kılıçgün Uçar and Keskin Bayındır, ÖHD Co-Chairs Ekin Yeter and Serhat Çakmak, members of the Peace Mothers Assembly, and DEM Party MPs.

While the delegation was taken to the site where the weapons-laying-down ceremony would take place, around 200 journalists watched the ceremony on a screen set up in the Dukan district of Sulaymaniyah.

The PKK guerrillas, who called themselves the “Peace and Democratic Society Group,” issued a statement saying: “From now on, in order to carry forward our struggle for freedom, democracy and socialism through democratic politics and legal means, and on the basis of the enactment of democratic integration laws, we are destroying our weapons of our own free will.”

The same statement also included the following: “As a step of goodwill and determination for the practical success of the Peace and Democratic Society process, and in order to carry forward our struggle for freedom, democracy and socialism from now on through democratic politics and legal means, and on the basis of the enactment of democratic integration laws, we are destroying our weapons of our own free will in your presence. We hope that this step we have taken will be auspicious for our entire people—women and youth above all—for the peoples of Turkey and the Middle East, and for all of humanity, and that it will bring peace and freedom.”

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Ruken Ay Adın

DEMOS Research Collective

“The Peace and Democratic Society Group took the most important step in the peace process, announced to have begun in October 2024: in a ceremony carried out by thirty guerrillas, fifteen of them women, they demonstrated—before more than one hundred fifty people—that they were giving up their weapons and their determination to continue their struggle through democratic politics. One of the institutions taking part was DEMOS, and I was there.”

“I still find myself looking at length at the photographs from that day; each time, I feel anew how priceless, how important a moment it was for everyone present, everyone working for peace, everyone who wants peace.”

“Today marks the first anniversary of that ceremony, of that decision. And as we hand this year over, neither those who burned their weapons at the ceremony are among us, nor have the conditions demanded for them to be able to be among us been met. I say this not from a place of pessimism or impatience, but because it points to the process’s lack of transparency.”

“The disarmament ceremony in Sulaymaniyah was not an isolated event; it was the outcome of a series of thresholds spanning months. At its 12th Congress, held on May 5-7, 2025, the PKK had announced that it was dissolving its organizational structure and ending its method of armed struggle. The weapons-burning ceremony on July 11 was the first concrete expression of that decision on the ground. In October, the PKK carried the process a step further by announcing the withdrawal of all its forces from Turkey.”

“A parallel institutionalization took place on the state side as well: on August 5, 2025, the National Solidarity, Fraternity and Democracy Commission was established within the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The Commission held a total of 21 meetings up to February 18, 2026; heard from 137 individuals and institutions; and shared its final report, adopted by qualified majority, with the public in February. This constitutes the official record of the process.”

“There is a concrete and undeniable gain on the ground: deaths resulting from armed conflict have come to a near-total halt. For a society that has lived through the cost of a conflict spanning decades, this is a threshold that cannot be dismissed.”

“We will certainly go on counting the years since the ceremony, but for this first anniversary, here is what I put on the table: Lasting peace is not merely a matter of confirmation bound to the calendar of the security bureaucracy; it is a matter of social peace, one that extends beyond the security-focused framework and includes all segments of society. In the second year, we will continue to insist on this.”

Reactions to the ceremony

Following the ceremony, Turkish state and government officials as well as Kurdish officials made statements on the significance of the step taken. Pervin Buldan, a member of DEM Party’s İmralı delegation and Deputy Speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by phone after the ceremony to thank him. Buldan thanked Erdoğan and MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli for their contributions to the process and expressed satisfaction that the process was continuing with the burning of the weapons.

That same day, Erdoğan also held a phone call with MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli. Bahçeli expressed to Erdoğan his satisfaction that a group of PKK members had destroyed their weapons.

In a post on social media, President Erdoğan said: “I hope that the important step taken today on the path toward our goal of a Turkey free of terrorism will lead to good outcomes. On this path we are walking for the security of our country, the peace of our nation, and the establishment of lasting peace in our region, may Almighty God grant us the achievement of our goals.”

According to information obtained by ANKA News Agency, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli also called Buldan by phone to congratulate her. In a statement to ANKA News Agency, Buldan said Bahçeli told her regarding today’s weapons-laying-down ceremony: “Both your effort and your contribution are considerable, so I wanted to thank you. And I also say, ‘may it be auspicious.'”

Resource: ANF, DW, BBC