Erdoğan's ruling party files PKK peace bill in parliament, offering suspended sentences to returning militants
The bill on "strengthening national solidarity and social cohesion", filed with the backing of 360 deputies, sets out how the PKK's disarmament will be supervised and how its members will be treated judicially: ongoing investigations and prosecutions would be postponed for a period that depends on the severity of the alleged offences, and dropped altogether if no terror-related crime is committed in that time. A ministerial committee and a parliamentary commission would monitor the process, and parliament's Justice Committee takes up the bill on Friday with the aim of passage before the summer recess. A pardon is expected to cover about 4,000 members not directly involved in violence, while Öcalan and others sentenced to life before 2005 are excluded. The peace process is already felt regionally: one analyst says it has helped along an oil agreement and trade ties with Iraq, and the Syrian state's integration of areas held by the SDF.