ANKARA (Reuters) -A car was set ablaze near Turkey’s parliament on Tuesday in a grim reminder of decades of conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), just hours before families of some victims were to address a commission overseeing the group’s disarmament.
The PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, said in May it would disarm and dissolve. The parliamentary commission was launched this month to set a path towards lasting peace, which would also resonate in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.
The white Renault Toros burned for a short time outside parliament’s main gate on Tuesday morning. Police in Ankara said in a statement that a man detained for setting it alight suffered from psychological problems and also had a prior criminal record.
In the 1990s, during one of the bloodiest phases of the PKK conflict, such vehicles became notorious in the mainly Kurdish southeast where they were linked to abductions and extrajudicial killings blamed on state-linked groups.
More than 40,000 people were killed in the fighting over more than four decades.
Families of security personnel and civilians killed in the conflict are due to speak at the parliamentary commission on Tuesday, with some expected to question the peace effort.
The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies. Its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, had urged it to end the insurgency and some militants burned their weapons last month in a ceremony in northern Iraq – where they are now based – marking a symbolic first step.
(Reporting by Ece ToksabayEditing by Jonathan Spicer and Gareth Jones)
