Kurdish PKK militants withdraw from 4 camps in northern Iraq amid Turkey peace process

Kurdish militants have pulled out of four camps in northern Iraq as part of an ongoing peace effort with Turkey, according to a media report published Monday. Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency, citing unidentified security officials, said the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, vacated the sites in the Baze area of the Metina region near the Turkish border. The camps were identified as Hebat, Yajk, Sabri and Sason and were reportedly emptied on Oct. 8.

The PKK offered no immediate comment on the report. The group's leadership is based in northern Iraq, and it has previously used positions in that region to launch attacks on Turkish targets.

The reported withdrawal follows a series of moves aimed at winding down a conflict that began in 1984. Last year, the PKK announced it would disarm and disband after a call from its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The group later held a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq and said it was pulling fighters out of key locations in Turkey and moving them into Iraq.

Last month, Turkey said it would gradually withdraw its forces from a strategic military base in northern Iraq and hand control to the Iraqi government. That announcement came after a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The camps' evacuation also comes after Turkey's parliament approved a bill in August that would grant a conditional pardon to thousands of militants. The measure would take effect only once Turkey's National Security Council confirms the group has fully dissolved and disarmed. It 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, with cases dropped for those who do not reoffend. Ocalan and other PKK leaders would be excluded, though media reports have suggested Ocalan could receive expanded visitation and communication rights at his island prison off Istanbul.

Turkey and its allies designate the PKK as a terrorist organization. Its armed insurgency has claimed tens of thousands of lives and spilled into Iraq and Syria, and the group initially sought an independent Kurdish state before shifting its demands to autonomy and expanded rights within Turkey.