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Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – EU ministers gave the final green light on Tuesday for Bulgaria to adopt the euro on January 1, 2026, making it the single currency area's 21st member.

Bulgaria's switch from the lev to the euro comes nearly 19 years after the country of 6.4 million people joined the European Union.

"We did it!" Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Jeliazkov said.

"We thank all institutions, partners and everyone whose efforts made this landmark moment possible. The government remains committed to a smooth and effective transition to the euro in the interest of all citizens," Jeliazkov said on X.

In adopting the legal texts necessary for the move, EU finance ministers officially set the euro at 1.95583 Bulgarian lev.

"Joining the euro area is much more than just about replacing lev with euro. It is about building a brighter and more prosperous future for Bulgaria and its citizens at the heart of Europe," EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis said after the approval.

"The euro will bring new opportunities, investments, jobs and growth," he said.

The European Commission last month said the EU's poorest country had fulfilled the strict conditions to adopt the euro, while the European Central Bank (ECB) also gave a positive opinion.

Bulgaria's journey to joining the eurozone has had a stormy political backdrop with seven elections in three years -- the last in October 2024.

But recent polls show Bulgarian society remains divided on the euro, with experts attributing the scepticism largely to fears of rising prices and declining purchasing power.

President Rumen Radev shocked many when he proposed holding a referendum on the matter but that was given short shrift by the Bulgarian parliament.

Since June, protesters have gathered in Sofia to call for "keeping the Bulgarian lev". A symbolic protest camp with several tents has been set up near the presidency and the Bulgarian National Bank in the capital.

Far-right opposition parties have used the issue to promote anti-EU narratives.

Proponents in Bulgaria, however, insist the move will help improve the country's economy, and reinforce its ties to the West and protect against Russia's influence.

"The political benefits are becoming increasingly significant, as the protests against the euro seem to bear the mark of the Kremlin," 43-year-old musician Veselin Dimitrov told AFP in Sofia.

The green light comes as the euro has been gaining in value against the US dollar as President Donald Trump's protectionist trade policies shake trust in the US currency.

Only 12 countries were part of the single currency area -- including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece -- when the first euro bills and coins were rolled out on January 1, 2002.

It gradually widened with Slovenia joining in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014 then Lithuania in 2015.

Croatia was the last country to join in 2023, bringing the total to 20.

Bulgaria wanted to adopt the euro sooner but Brussels judged its inflation was too high to meet the necessary criteria.

EU states that want to join the single currency must demonstrate that their economy has converged with other eurozone countries and that they have their finances under control.

The conditions include holding inflation to no more than 1.5 percentage points higher than the rate of the three best-performing EU countries.

When Brussels gave its backing in June, it said Bulgaria's average inflation rate during the 12 months to April 2025 was 2.7 percent, just below the needed level.

New Delhi (AFP) – Indian villagers beat a family of five to death and dumped their corpses in a lake， accusing them of "practising witchcraft" after the death of a boy, police said Tuesday.

Three people have been arrested and have confessed to the crime, police in the northern state of Bihar said in a statement.

Three women -- including a 75-year-old -- were among those murdered.

The main accused believed that his son's recent death was caused by one of those killed, and blamed "him and his family of practising witchcraft", the statement said.

"After beating the victims to death, the perpetrators loaded the bodies onto a tractor and dumped them in a pond," police said.

The murderers and victims all belonged to India's Oraon tribe in Bihar, India's poorest state and a mainly Hindu region of at least 130 million people.

Despite campaigns against superstition, belief in witchcraft remains widespread in rural areas across India, especially in isolated tribal communities.

Some states, including Bihar, have introduced laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft and superstition.

Women have often been branded witches and targeted, but the killing of the family of five stands out as a particularly heinous recent example.

More than 1,500 people -- the overwhelming majority of them women -- were killed in India on suspicion of witchcraft between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Some believe in the occult, but attackers also sometimes have other motives including usurping their rights over land and property.

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Gaza's civil defence agency on Tuesday said that 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory devastated by 21 months of war.

Among those were nine people killed in a drone strike on a camp for displaced people near Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, according to civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Shaimaa Al-Shaer, 30, a resident of the Al-Sanabel camp, told AFP: "I was in front of my tent preparing breakfast for my four children -- beans and a bit of dry bread. Suddenly, there was an explosion.

"Smoke and dust filled the area. Debris and stones flew in all directions and hit our tent," she added.

"Four children who were playing in front of the neighbouring tent were injured. I saw people carrying martyrs. We don't know where death comes from, the bombings continue."

Bassal said that 20 other people, including at least three children and two women, were killed in six other strikes on Tuesday across the Gaza Strip.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military when contacted by AFP.

Doha (AFP) – Qatar said Tuesday more time was needed for negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, after US President Donald Trump voiced optimism about a possible breakthrough.

"I don't think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said as indirect negotiations continued into a third day in Doha.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, meanwhile, on his third visit to the White House since Trump returned to power.

Trump, who is pushing for a ceasefire, expressed confidence a deal could be reached, saying: "I don't think there is a hold-up. I think things are going along very well."

Qatar, a mediator along with the United States and Egypt, said the meetings in Doha were focused on a framework for the talks, while a Palestinian official close to the negotiations said no breakthrough had been achieved so far.

Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was set to join the talks in Doha this week.

On the ground, five Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza -- one of the deadliest days this year for Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory.

Gaza's civil defence meanwhile reported 29 killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday.

Israel and Hamas began the latest round of negotiations on Sunday, with representatives seated in separate rooms within the same building.

At the White House, sitting across from Netanyahu, Trump said Hamas was willing to end the Gaza conflict, now in its 22nd month.

"They want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire," Trump said when asked if ongoing clashes would derail talks.

An Israeli official accompanying Netanyahu to Washington said the proposal under discussion was "80-90 percent of what Israel wanted."

"I believe that with military and political pressure, all the hostages can be returned," the official told Israeli media.

According to Ariel Kahana of Israel Hayom daily, "President Trump and his advisers are currently exerting considerable effort to reach an agreement that would lead to the release of the hostages and could even end the war in Gaza".

However, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir opposed negotiations with Hamas, saying that "there is no need to negotiate with those who murder our fighters; they must be torn to shreds".

Gaza's civil defence agency reported 29 people killed in Israeli strikes across the territory, including three children.

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the agency, said nine of those were killed in a drone strike on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza.

"I was in front of my tent preparing breakfast for my four children -- beans and a bit of dry bread. Suddenly, there was an explosion," said Shaimaa Al-Shaer, 30, who lives in the camp.

While Israel has the full backing of the Trump administration, the US leader has increasingly pushed for an end to what he called the "hell" in Gaza and said on Sunday he believed there was a "good chance" of an agreement this coming week.

"The utmost priority for the president right now in the Middle East is to end the war in Gaza and to return all of the hostages," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The US proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel, two Palestinian sources close to the discussions had earlier told AFP.

Hamas was also demanding certain conditions for Israel's withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system, they said.

Paris (AFP) – New research on Monday contradicted the commonly held idea that males dominate females among primates, revealing far more nuanced power dynamics in the relationships of our close relatives.

"For a long time we have had a completely binary view of this issue: we thought that a species was either dominated by males or females -- and that this was a fixed trait," Elise Huchard, a primatologist at the University of Montpellier in France, told AFP.

"Recently, this idea has been challenged by studies showing that the truth is much more complicated," said the lead author of a new study published in the journal PNAS.

The French-German team of researchers combed through scientific literature for interactions between male and female primates that revealed their hierarchical relationships.

These included aggression, threats and signs of dominant or submissive behaviour, such as when one primate spontaneously moved out of the way of another.

Over five years, the team gathered data from 253 populations across 121 primate species, including a range of monkeys, lemurs, tarsiers and lorises.

They found that confrontations between members of the opposite sex were much more frequent than had been previously thought. On average, more than half of these interactions within a group involved a male and a female.

Males clearly dominating females, which was defined as winning more than 90 percent of these confrontations, was only observed in 17 percent of the populations. Among this minority were baboons and chimpanzees, which are the closest living relatives to humans.

Clear female domination was recorded in 13 percent of the primate populations, including lemurs and bonobos.

This meant that for 70 percent of the primates, either males or females could be at the top of the pecking order.

When male domination was particularly pronounced, it was usually in a species where males have a clear physical advantage, such as bigger bodies or teeth.

It was also more common among ground-bound species, in which females are less able to run and hide compared to their relatives living in the trees.

Females, meanwhile, tended to dominate over societies when they exerted control over reproduction.

For example, the genitals of female baboons swell when they are ovulating. Males jealously guard females during these few days of their menstrual cycle, making sure that other competitors cannot mate with them.

However in bonobos, this sexual swelling is less obvious.

"Males never know when they are ovulating or not. As a result, (the female bonobos) can mate with whoever they want, whenever they want, much more easily," Huchard said.

Female dominance is also more common when females compete with each other, and when males provide more care for the young.

In these species, females are often solitary or only live in male-female pairs. This means that monogamy is closely linked to female dominance.

Can these results be extrapolated to our own species? There are a great many differences between humans and our fellow primates, Huchard emphasised.

But we would broadly fall into the middle category in which neither males nor females always have strict dominance over the other.

"These results corroborate quite well with what we know about male-female relationships among hunter-gatherers, which were more egalitarian than in the agricultural societies that emerged later" in human history, Huchard said.

Nairobi (AFP) – At least 10 people died across Kenya and hundreds were arrested during anti-government demonstrations on Monday, a rights group and police said, following clashes between police and protesters in the capital Nairobi's outskirts.

The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) also accused the police of cooperating with criminal gangs, as a heavy deployment of the security forces kept much of central Nairobi deserted ahead of the annual marches to mark Saba Saba Day.

Meaning Seven Seven, the demonstrations commemorate July 7, 1990 when Kenyans rose up to demand a return to multi-party democracy after years of autocratic rule by then-president Daniel arap Moi.

The KNCHR said in a statement it "had documented ten fatalities, twenty-nine injuries" across 17 counties, but did not provide any further details.

A statement from the National Police Service (NPS) late Monday put the death toll at 11, with 52 police officers and 11 civilians wounded.

From around midday, AFP saw running battles with groups of anti-riot police who fired teargas at small gatherings, with some of the crowd throwing rocks back and engaging in destructive looting.

Young Kenyans, frustrated over economic stagnation, corruption and police brutality, are once again engaging in protests that last month degenerated into looting and violence, leaving dozens dead and thousands of businesses destroyed.

Protesters accuse the authorities of paying armed vandals to discredit their movement, while the government has compared June's demonstrations to an "attempted coup".

On Monday, the streets of central Nairobi were quiet after police mounted roadblocks on the main roads, restricting entry to areas that were the epicentre of previous rallies.

Many businesses were closed for the day.

"I have never witnessed the city centre like this," security guard Edmond Khayimba, 29, told AFP.

While the centre remained deserted, groups gathered on the outskirts in the afternoon with AFP reporters witnessing two people wounded, as well as looting and vandalism.

Protesters on a major highway clashed with police blocking their entry into the city, with the small crowds chanting: "Ruto Must Go", a popular rallying cry against President William Ruto, and "wantam", meaning "one term".

Again, AFP saw looting and property destruction in the surrounding area.

In its statement, the KNCHR noted the presence of "criminal gangs wielding crude weapons, including whips, wooden clubs, machetes, spears, bows and arrows" during the protests in a number of counties, including Nairobi, where "these hooded gangs were seen operating alongside police officers".

In comments to AFP, NPS spokesperson Michael Muchiri said the KNCHR statements "may lack factualness many times over".

The spokesperson also reiterated that the NPS "would never work alongside individuals called 'goons' or criminal elements", using the name used for the armed men paid to disrupt demonstrations.

Muchiri said in a later statement that 567 people had been arrested during the protests, but did not provide any further details.

Kipchumba Murkomen, the interior cabinet secretary, said recent demonstrations had "been infiltrated by criminals out to cause chaos and destruction".

In a statement on X, he said the looting and violence had been "markedly reduced" by the officers' presence, but promised those responsible would be "investigated and charged".

Social media and rising economic expectations have fanned anger over inequalities in a country where around 80 percent are trapped in informal, poorly paid jobs.

But a crackdown by the police -- at least 80 people have died in protests since June last year while dozens have been detained illegally -- has scared many off the streets.

"What he has promised the country, (he) is not delivering," Onsomu said.

Since being elected in 2022, Ruto has forged an uneasy alliance with the main opposition leader Raila Odinga, leaving no clear challenger ahead of the next vote in 2027.

But each violent crackdown fuels further unrest, said activist Nerima Wako.

"Every time people organise a protest, they kill more people, so it just continues to feed off itself," she said.

The previous demonstration on June 25 -- intended to mark the peak of last year's deadly anti-government rallies -- turned violent and left 19 people dead, according to rights groups.

Buenos Aires (Argentina) (AFP) – Nearly five decades after he was born in a dictatorship-era detention center and snatched from his mother, a Buenos Aires man has become the 140th person identified as one of Argentina's hundreds of "stolen grandchildren."

DNA tests confirmed the birth identity of the 48-year-old introduced by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo activist group Monday simply as "Grandchild No. 140."

The group has worked for decades to trace the whereabouts of young activist women who were arrested and "disappeared" by Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship, and the now-adult babies they bore in captivity.

Nearly 500 infants are believed to have been taken, many given to childless people close to a dictatorship keen to have them raised as regime loyalists.

The identity of "Grandchild No. 140" was not revealed at a press conference held by the Grandmothers to announce the happy breakthrough.

But among those present was his older sister, Adriana Metz Romero, who works with the Grandmothers and tearfully told reporters she could not wait to meet her sibling in person.

"Now I know where my brother is!" she said, sitting with a black-and-white photo of their parents: Graciela Alicia Romero and Raul Eugenio Metz, left-wing activists snatched by authorities in December 1976.

Romero was 24 years old, mother to a one-year-old daughter, and five months pregnant at the time, according to the Grandmothers.

She gave birth to a son on April 17, 1977 while held at a clandestine detention center known as "La Escuelita" in the port city of Bahia Blanca.

She was tortured there, according to witness testimony. Neither Romero nor Metz was heard from again.

The Grandmothers said Romero's long-lost son was finally found thanks to an anonymous tip.

"We decided to call him to find out if he would agree to a DNA test. He agreed, and it was confirmed that he is my brother," said Metz Romero, who has had initial contact with him via video call.

She was herself raised by her grandparents.

Founded in 1977, the Grandmothers group takes its name from the Plaza de Mayo square in Buenos Aires where women defied the dictatorship to hold protests demanding information on the whereabouts of their loved ones.

Rights groups say about 30,000 people died or disappeared under the brutal rule, though Argentina's current libertarian President Javier Milei has claimed the number was lower.

The Grandmothers have accused Milei of defunding their research in his quest to slash public spending.

In June, the group went to court to demand protections for the National Genetic Data Bank -- which helped in this case but has been left largely "paralyzed" by budget cuts, according to the Grandmothers.

Leader Estela de Carlotto, herself reunited with a lost grandson decades after her pregnant daughter disappeared, made another appeal for support Monday.

"Thanks to perseverance and constant work... they (stolen grandchildren) will continue to appear, but the search cannot be done alone," she said at the "Space for Memory," a former torture center converted into a memorial site in the capital.

"It was the state itself, through state terrorism, that facilitated the abduction of these children, so it must now facilitate the search for them," said the 94-year-old.

"These 300 people who still need to be found are part of our society and must be able to exercise their right to identity," she added.

United Nations (United States) (AFP) – The United Nations General Assembly on Monday denounced the "systematic oppression" of women and girls in Afghanistan by the country's Taliban authorities.

The resolution was adopted by 116 votes in favor versus the United States and Israel against, with 12 abstentions.

The text "expresses its serious concern about the grave, worsening, widespread and systematic oppression of all women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban."

It said the Taliban, a strictly conservative Islamist armed group that took control of the country in 2021, "has put in place an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and the exclusion of women and girls."

Since taking power, Taliban authorities, who also ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, have restricted women's education and ability to work, and barred them from participation in many forms of public life.

Member states called on the Taliban "to swiftly reverse contradictory policies and practices," including laws that "extend the already intolerable restrictions on the human rights of women and girls and on basic personal freedoms for all Afghans."

The resolution welcomed the Doha talks, initiated in 2023 by the UN to coordinate the international community's approach to the Taliban authorities, and called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to appoint a coordinator to facilitate that process.

The United States opposed the resolution and rejected engagement with the Taliban government.

"Nearly four years following the Taliban takeover, we continue the same conversations and engage with the same so-called Taliban officials about improving the situation in Afghanistan without demanding results from them," said US representative Jonathan Shrier.

"The United States will no longer enable their heinous behavior."

The Taliban returned to power after reaching a peace agreement with the United States during President Donald Trump's first term, overthrowing the country's government after foreign forces withdrew under the deal.

Russia officially became the first country to recognize the Taliban government last week.

Washington (AFP) – Jeffrey Epstein was not murdered, did not blackmail prominent figures and did not keep a "client list," the FBI and Justice Department said Monday, debunking notable conspiracy theories about the disgraced US financier.

The conclusions came after an "exhaustive review" of the evidence amassed against Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking, the agencies said in a joint memorandum.

Six years later, questions continue to swirl around Epstein's life and death and the multi-millionaire hedge fund manager's connections to wealthy and powerful individuals.

The memo, first reported by Axios, squarely rejected one of the leading conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein -- that he did not commit suicide but was murdered while being held in jail.

"After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell," it said.

Video footage from the area where he was being held did not show anyone entering or attempting to enter his cell from the time at night when he was locked in till when his body was found the next morning, it said.

Extensive digital and physical searches turned up a large volume of images and videos of Epstein's victims, many of them underage girls, the memo said.

"This review confirmed that Epstein harmed over one thousand victims," it said, but did not reveal any illegal wrongdoing by "third-parties."

"This systematic review revealed no incriminating 'client list,'" the memo said. "There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions."

Epstein's former assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell, is the only former associate of his who has been criminally charged in connection with his activities.

Maxwell, the daughter of British media baron Robert Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in New York in 2021 of child sex trafficking and other crimes.

Among those with connections to Epstein was Britain's Prince Andrew, who settled a US civil case in February 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.

Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave, committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.

Billionaire Elon Musk accused President Donald Trump on X last month of being in the "Epstein files" after the pair had a falling out, but he later deleted his posts.

Trump was named in a trove of depositions and statements linked to Epstein that were unsealed by a New York judge in early 2024, but the president has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Supporters on the conspiratorial end of Trump's "Make America Great Again" base allege that Epstein's associates had their roles in his crimes covered up by government officials and others.

They point the finger at Democrats and Hollywood celebrities, although not at Trump himself.

Prior to the release of the memo, Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel, and the FBI's deputy director, Dan Bongino, had been among the most prominent peddlers of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein.

Mexico City (AFP) – Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday condemned "xenophobic" behavior at a protest against gentrification blamed on remote workers and other foreigners.

Friday's rally in Mexico City turned violent, with some of the several hundred protesters vandalizing businesses including a Starbucks coffee shop.

Others held signs saying "Gringo go home" or demanding that foreigners speak Spanish, pay taxes and respect Mexican culture.

"The xenophobic displays at this demonstration must be condemned," Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference.

Protesters complained that an influx of remote workers and other foreigners since the Covid pandemic had driven up rent prices and displaced Mexicans, a phenomenon known as gentrification.

As they passed street-side restaurants, some demonstrators heckled foreign diners, who either ignored them or left.

Sheinbaum, who was Mexico City mayor from 2018 to 2023, called the motive for the protest legitimate but rejected calls for foreigners to leave.

The leftist leader linked the rise in rents to the arrival of "digital nomads," many of them from the United States, as well as real estate speculation connected to online rental platforms such as Airbnb.

Mexico is home to one-fifth of the five million expatriates counted by the Association of Americans Resident Overseas in 2023.

The march came as US President Donald Trump intensifies his crackdown against undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Tehran (AFP) – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview released on Monday that Israel, which last month fought a 12-day war with Iran, had attempted to assassinate him.

The remarks came less than a month after Israel launched its unprecedented June 13 bombing campaign against Iran, killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists.

The Israeli attacks took place two days before Tehran and Washington were set to meet for a new round of nuclear talks, stalling negotiations that were aimed at reaching a deal over Iran's atomic programme.

"They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed," Pezeshkian told US media figure Tucker Carlson in response to a question on whether he believed Israel had tried to kill him.

"It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting... they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting," he said according to a translation of his remarks from Persian, in apparent reference to an alleged assassination attempt during the recent war.

More than 900 people were killed in Iran during the conflict, according to the judiciary.

The Israeli attacks drew waves of retaliatory drone and missile fire, killing 28 people in Israel, according to authorities.

The 12-day war between Iran and Israel saw it, along with the United States, launching strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.

A ceasefire between Iran and Israel took hold since June 24.

On June 16, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule out plans to assassinate Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying it would "end the conflict" after reports emerged at the time that US President Donald Trump had vetoed the move.

During the interview with Carlson, Pezeshkian accused Netanyahu of pursuing his "own agenda" of "forever wars" in the Middle East, and urged the United States not to be dragged into it.

"The US adminstration should refrain from getting involved in a war that is not America's war, it is Netanyahu's war," he said.

He added that his country has "no problem" restarting nuclear talks, provided that trust can be reestablished between the two countries.

"We see no problem in re-entering the negotiations," the Iranian president said.

"There is a condition ... for restarting the talks. How are we going to trust the United States again?"

"We re-entered the negotiations, then how can we know for sure that in the middle of the talks the Israeli regime will not be given the permission again to attack us."

Istanbul (AFP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM party Monday to discuss the next steps after PKK militants agreed to end their decades-long insurgency.

DEM, Turkey's third-biggest party, has played a key role in facilitating an emerging peace deal between the government and jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, whose Kurdish militant group is expected to begin laying down its weapons later this week.

The meeting, which lasted just over an hour, brought together Erdogan, Efkan Ala, a senior figure in his ruling AKP, and spy chief Ibrahim Kalin with DEM lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar.

"Our delegation conveyed their views and suggestions on the new stage the process has reached and what to do next," the DEM lawmakers said in a brief statement after the talks.

DEM lawmaker Buldan called the meeting "historic".

"The process is now entering a new phase in which consultations are needed," she told reporters before the meeting.

"It is important to consult to take the necessary steps," she added, saying the sides would "exchange views".

Fellow DEM lawmaker Mithat Sancar said the new phase was "very important" and that they would use the meeting to "share our views" and to "listen to them".

"We will consult with the president and his delegation about the characteristics of this new phase and the upcoming requirements."

On Sunday, the pair held a "very productive" meeting with Ocalan on Imrali prison island. The jailed 76-year-old PKK founder also characterised the upcoming talks with Erdogan as "historic".

He told them a parliamentary commission being set up would "play a major role" in directing the peace process.

The meeting came as the PKK was to hold a ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan to start destroying a first tranche of weapons -- which will likely take place on or around July 10-12.

Erdogan said the move would give momentum to peace efforts with the Kurds.

The disarmament process is expected to unfold over the coming months.