Turkey veteran urges accountability, unity as PKK disarms

A veteran of Turkey's decades-long conflict with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgents told lawmakers on Tuesday that national unity and legal accountability were required as part of a peace process with the militant group.

Lokman Aylar, head of an association of families of dead and wounded soldiers, who himself lost an eye in battle, said he supported the PKK disarmament process now underway but said the group's members must face justice.

Aylar and several families of those killed in the four-decade conflict were addressing a parliamentary commission overseeing the disarmament process. Some questioned the PKK's commitment to peace, underlining the tricky path ahead for President Tayyip Erdogan's government.

"Without unity, terrorism cannot be defeated. This must be the shared cause of all 85 million citizens" of Turkey, Aylar told the commission.

"Those who fired at our soldiers and police must be held accountable before the law. Their return (to Turkey) would deeply wound the families of martyrs and veterans."

Aylar was wounded in 1996 in clashes with the PKK in the country's mostly Kurdish southeast.

The outlawed PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, said in May it would disarm and dissolve. The parliamentary commission was launched this month to set a path towards lasting peace, which would also resonate in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting over more than four decades.

CAR SET ABLAZE

In a grim reminder of the years of violence, a white Renault Toros was set ablaze near the parliament hours before the meeting began.

A man detained for setting it alight suffered from psychological problems and had a prior criminal record, the interior ministry said, adding that he was protesting tax incentives for scrap vehicles.

In the 1990s, during one of the bloodiest phases of the conflict, Renault Toros cars became notorious in the southeast, where they were linked to abductions and extrajudicial killings blamed on state-linked groups.

The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies. Its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, urged it to end the insurgency and some militants burned their weapons last month in a ceremony in northern Iraq – where they are now based – marking a symbolic first step.