Hope, fear and anger for families waiting to end the war

When a party of workers of Kurdistan (PKK) was banned last month, which will dissolve and end its decades of rebels against Turkey, Leila hopes she will soon be able to reunite with her son.

Three years ago, a former seller left the house to join the group – spelled out as a terrorist organization Turkey, the US, the United Kingdom and the EU – in the remote mountains, near the border of Iran with Iran.

Apart from the two videos he sent, the last in March Leila has not seen him since.

“When I first heard about the announcement, I was very happy,” says Leila, whose name we changed because I was afraid of repression from the group.

“But nothing has changed over time.”

For 40 years, the PCC has been fighting with Turkey in a conflict that killed more than 40,000 people, many of them civilians and is one of the longest in the world.

Some BBC families talked to the Gorky PCC condemnation, while others were proud of how family members were killed, fighting for a group and considered that this sacrifice paved the way to peace talks.

The proclamation of the PCC that he stopped the struggle was regarded as a historical moment for Turkey, its Kurdish minority and neighboring countries in which the conflict overflowed.

But since then, the official peace process with Turkey has not begun, and there is no official ceasefire, and the murder reports on both sides.

Initially, it was created to fight for an independent Kurdish state in Turkey, the PCC has moved attention to the 1990s to demand more cultural and political autonomy for the Kurds.

Leila, who lives in the semi -automatic region of Kurdistan Iraq, bordering on Turkey, says she didn’t even hear about the PCC until her son, Iraqi, came home in the twenties, talking about the ideology of the group.

She accuses her son’s “brainwash” group, convincing him that they defend the ethnic minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East but have no nation -state.

Leila says that over time, her son began to become more independent, making a bed, washing his clothes and making dishes. Now she believes that the PCC prepared him for a cruel life he soon lives in the mountains.

On the day he left, he came home with three “comrades” to tell his mother that he was going to the mountains to start six months of training.

She says she repeatedly tried to dissuade him from joining the PCC, but he was determined to go.

“He was so determined. The dispute with him would have no use.”

Since then, Leila says she regularly visited the Mountains of Kandil in the hope of looking at her son, but never saw him.

“If they just allowed me to see him once a year, I would be happy,” she says.

BBC went to the Qandil mountains having rare PKK access for the movie.

Mountains that are sparsely populated and known for their natural beauty help to protect thousands of PCC militants from Turkish air strikes.

The journey took a few hours to drive narrow, uneven roads, in the area where there are several traits of the population, except a handful of farmers and shepherds.

When the BBC approached the PKK checkpoint, we saw great photos of the group leader and founder -member Abdullah Ocalan – put in prison in a solitary confinement since 1999 – demonstrated through the mountains. But when the BBC reached the checkpoint, PKK denied us entry.

Later, we were told by the PKK authorities that they were negotiating with the group and they did not want to attention in the media.

They did not say what the negotiations were talked about, although Iraqi Federal Foreign Minister Mohammed Hussein said last month that BBC discussions would take place with PCC, Turkey, Iraq and the Kurdistan regional government to discuss how the group’s weapons will be handed over.

So far, the conditions of a possible peaceful deal between Turkey and PCC are unknown.

PKK reported the BBC in a written statement that he is sincere and serious about the process, insisting that his leader Ocalan should be released.

“Now the ball is in Turkey’s court. The peace process cannot develop on the basis of unilateral steps,” said Zagras Hiva, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Community (KCK), an umbrella group of regional Kurdish organizations.

But in possible obstacles, the senior local commander, who is in the second line of the Iraqi leadership, said the BBC in a written statement that, in his opinion, disarmament was “not discussion”.

Still suspicious of Turkey’s intentions, he adds that “if we address the causes of the armed conflict, the weapons will not be useful for both parties.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a clear willingness to end the conflict with the PCC, which was interpreted by some as an application for raising Kurdish support for the new constitution to extend the 22-year rules he denies.

He described the PCC’s decision to dissolve as an important step to “our Turkey’s goal without terrorism.”

Writing on X, the Turkish president said the new era should begin after “liquidation of terror and violence.”

For some families whose loved ones were killed, fighting for the PCC, the idea that the conflict may soon end with bitter-sweet.

Takur’s coffee was 21 when he was killed two years ago. His sister Rondek Takor, who lives in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Suleimania, last saw him in the mountains in 2019.

Speaking from a family house where photos of coffee decorate the walls of the living room, Rondek says her brother’s death changed her family’s life. “I always dream of him,” she says with his eyes.

Rondek, who in the twenties, still remembers the last conversation they had together.

“I asked him if he wanted to go home home and he said” Never. “He even asked me to join him in the mountains,” she says.

For the Rondek and her family, which are P-PKK, the group will dissolve at the same time the moment of “pride and pain, especially after our huge loss.”

She believes that “these are the victims we have brought, and the martyrs we lost have paved the way to the executives to speak the world.”

What is next is uncertain.

There are questions about what will happen with thousands of Turkish PCC fighters and whether you will allow them to reintegrate to Turkish society.

Turkish officials will not yet say whether these fighters will be regarded as criminals and face persecution. But reports on Turkish media suggested that militants who have not committed crimes in Turkey could return without pursuit, although PCC leaders may be forced to exile to other countries or remain in Iraq.

It is also unclear what the group’s gap for other Kurdish groups, in particular in northeast Syria, which Turkey considers shooting from the PCC, will mean.

During the Civil War in Syria, Turkish forces and Syrian militants, supported by the Turkish language, launched a number of offensive funds for the capture of border areas conducted by the Syrian Kurdish militia called “Public Defense” (YPG).

Ypg dominates the Union of Kurdish and Arab militias, called the Syrian democratic forces who expelled the Islamic State group from a quarter of Syria through a multinational coalition under the leadership of the United States.

YPG says it is a clear formation from the PCC, but Turkey rejects it as a terrorist organization.

Erdogan said the PCC’s decision should dissolve “to cover all the extensions of the organization in northern Iraq, Syria and Europe.” SDF commander Mazulum Abzi said the PCC’s decision was “paving the way to a new political and peace process in the region”.

However, he also stated that the disarmament of the PCC does not apply to the SDF, which signed a separate transaction with the Syrian armed forces in December.

In Iran, the PJAK group, which is also included in the KCK, told the BBC Turkish that supports the “new process” in Turkey, but that it does not plan to disarm and dissolve itself.

PJAK is appointed Turkey and Iran as a terrorist organization. Since 2011, the actual ceasefire has occurred between the group and the Iranian government.

Turkey says piuka is an Iranian PCC hand, but Kurdish groups deny it.

For mothers such as Leila, all the complexities of politics and the difficult balance of military states across the region are irrelevant. What she cares about is her son again with her.

“He will return home if he gets tired of the harsh life in the mountains, at some point he will realize that he can no longer take it.”

When that happens, Leila plans to leave her hometown where her son was recruited by the PCC.

“This city brought me nothing but pain.”