Kurdish Mothers Urge Turkey To Grant Amnesty in PKK Peace Push
Turkey’s decadeslong struggle with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) returned to the halls of parliament this week, not through the voices of politicians or generals but through the pleas of mothers. Members of the group known as the “Peace Mothers” called on lawmakers to grant amnesty to their children and bring an end to more than 40 years of bloodshed.
“We mothers do not want to cry anymore. Let us bury weapons, not our children,” said Nezahat Teke, addressing the National Solidarity, Fraternity and Democracy Commission, the parliamentary body tasked with charting a course toward peace.
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The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, first took up arms against Ankara in 1984. Its conflict with the Turkish state has claimed more than 40,000 lives. In May, the group announced plans to disarm and dissolve, and last month some members symbolically burned weapons in northern Iraq, where the PKK is now based.
Teke, wearing the white headscarf that has become a symbol of the Peace Mothers, urged parliament to create a legal pathway for fighters to come down from the mountains. “If they come down only to be sentenced to life in prison, how can we persuade others to burn their weapons?” she asked.
Another mother, Rebia Kiran, pressed lawmakers to allow PKK members to enter politics rather than face lengthy prison terms. “If you want peace, let them join politics instead of being locked away,” she said.
The calls came just a day after the same commission heard Turkish veterans and victims’ families demand that PKK members be held accountable. The tension between justice and reconciliation now looms over efforts to end one of Turkey’s longest-running conflicts—one whose echoes stretch beyond its borders into neighboring Syria.
