General
Emotions were palpable during the ceremony in which the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, burned some of its weapons earlier this month in the mountains of Kurdistan in Iraq.
There was nervousness over security, excitement about what was to come – and a longing for a peace in which no daughters and sons would feel the need any longer to join the armed resistance. Tears of relief and a sense of sadness over the end of an era. A milestone for the Kurdish movement, which can only become a milestone in the history of the whole of Turkey if there is a shared goal. That shared goal must be a certain kind of peace.
The era wrapped up once and for all during the weapons-burning ceremony on July 11 started in 1984 – on August 15 to be precise, almost 41 years ago, when the PKK launched its first armed attacks against the Turkish state. The group had been founded in 1978.
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