President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Tuesday evening, while returning from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, that the PKK must actually lay down its arms and disband for the framework law on Terror-Free Türkiye to be implemented.
The Terror-Free Türkiye process
Erdoğan said the government did not view the Terror-Free Türkiye process as an issue tied solely to a specific timetable. He said Türkiye had a roadmap, a plan and a set timetable for implementing the process.
Erdoğan said approaches that weaken the brotherhood of the people and risk reactivating the fault lines created by terrorism in the past could not be tolerated.
Erdoğan said the institutions involved in the process were working in coordination, adding that the strong consensus reached on the issue in the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye was important and valuable.
Erdoğan said the monitoring committee established under the chairmanship of Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz had begun planning the steps to be taken within the framework of the duties set out in the law. Erdoğan said the process was advancing step by step so that the law could be implemented, adding that the issue was being handled with the seriousness of the state and that the steps were being taken accordingly.
Scope of the law
Erdoğan said the Turkish people supported the Terror-Free Türkiye process and that it should not be prolonged in order to prevent provocations. He also said that strengthening the domestic front did not mean eliminating differences.
The Law on Strengthening National Solidarity and Social Integration, prepared as part of the Terror-Free Türkiye process, was adopted by the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye on August 10 and published in the Official Gazette on August 18.
The law sets out procedures concerning the postponement of investigations and prosecutions, the enforcement of convictions handed down against PKK members and certain other proceedings after it is established that the organization and affiliated formations have ended all forms of their de facto presence and surrendered all weapons and ammunition in their possession.
