After a weeklong journey on foot, the first group of members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) heading toward the Iraqi-Turkish border arrived early today [May 14], and entered the Kurdistan region of Iraq through the border town of Harur in the province of Dohuk. The PKK members went in response to the call of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in the Turkish Imrali prison, following a peace process between the Turkish government and Ocalan, raising the ire of the Iraqi government.

This group comprising nine men and six women is the first to withdraw from Turkey and head to Iraq in response to the call of Ocalan to retreat from the Turkey. Upon the group’s arrival, an official welcoming ceremony was held by their fellow PKK members who are based, with their leadership, in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

The PKK was founded on Nov. 27, 1978, at which time Ocalan was designated the party’s leader. The PKK has a Marxist-Leninist orientation and one of its fundamental goals is to establish a greater independent Kurdish state. In 1948, the military activity of the party started within [historical] Kurdistan and Ocalan was arrested on Feb. 15, 1999, after 15 years of armed military operations. Ocalan was sentenced to death in June of the same year.

In tandem with the arrival of the first PKK members to the Iraqi Kurdistan region, the Iraqi government made haste on Tuesday, May 14, to look into the developments of the agreement concluded between the Turkish government and the Kurdish opposition represented by the PKK. Even though the Iraqi government reiterated its support to peacefully resolving the problems that the region is enduring, it stressed its refusal of achieving peaceful solutions at the expense of Iraq and its sovereignty.