PKK militants vacate four camps in northern Iraq as Turkey peace process advances

The camps and the reported withdrawal

Turkish security sources, as reported by the state-run Anadolu agency, said the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) vacated four camps in the Baze area of the Metina region of northern Iraq, near the Turkish border, on 8 October. The camps were named as Hebat, Yajk, Sabri and Sason. Turkish media reported the move on Monday, 12 October, citing security sources, a term that usually refers to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT). The PKK's leadership is based in northern Iraq, and the group had previously used positions in the region to attack Turkish targets. At the time of the first reports, the militant group had made no immediate comment.

The PKK's account and its disarmament history

Through the Kurdish news agency Firat, the PKK said it had recently withdrawn all its fighters from Turkish territory and from positions in northern Iraq so that the Turkish state would not see them as a threat. A PKK representative had earlier said on Thursday, 8 October, that the group had left 'tunnels' in the northern Iraq region. The group accused the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of not pursuing the peace process sincerely and quickly enough, and claimed it had done its own share of the work, two months after the August approval of the law. In 2025 the PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its allies, announced its decision to disarm and disband in an effort to end more than four decades of conflict. The announcement followed a call from its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and the group later held a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq. In September 2026, Turkey said it would gradually withdraw its forces from a strategic military base in northern Iraq and hand control to the Iraqi government, after Erdogan met Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The pardon law and Ocalan

The bill approved by the Turkish parliament in August would grant a conditional pardon to thousands of militants, but it takes effect only after Turkey's National Security Council confirms that the group has fully dissolved and disarmed, with that decision published in the Official Journal. The law would suspend certain prison sentences for convicted PKK members and postpone ongoing investigations and trials for five or 10 years, depending on the severity of the crime, and cases would be dropped against those who do not reoffend in that period. Ocalan, 77, has been held in isolation on Imrali island, south of Istanbul, since 1999 and is serving a life sentence. One report says Ocalan and other PKK leaders would be excluded from the pardon, while another notes the adopted law does not specify what would happen to him, and media reports suggest he could nevertheless receive expanded visitation and communication rights at his island prison. Turkey has also recently created four sub-commissions to supervise the dissolution of the PKK, and Ocalan is to take part in one of them, dedicated to handing over the group's weapons.

Background to the insurgency

The PKK's armed insurgency, launched in 1984, has claimed tens of thousands of lives and spilled into Iraq and Syria. The group initially sought an independent Kurdish state and later shifted its demands to autonomy and expanded rights in Turkey. The Turkish army repeatedly struck the northern Iraqi border zone during the war, and the PKK initially had its headquarters there before moving further east to the Qandil mountains, where it kept a strong presence. The camps now being vacated sit in the same border region where the PKK has previously used positions to attack Turkish targets.