Outlawed Kurdish militants have declared a ceasefire with Turkey after a landmark call by the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, asking the group to disband.
It was the first reaction from the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) after Öcalan this week called for the dissolution of the group and asked it to lay down arms after fighting the Turkish state for more than four decades.
“In order to pave the way for the implementation of leader Apo’s call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK executive committee said, referring to Öcalan and quoted by the pro-PKK ANF news agency.
“We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee, which is based in northern Iraq, added. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked.”
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU, has waged an insurgency since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for Kurds, who account for about 20% of Turkey’s 85 million people.
Since Öcalan was jailed in 1999 there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed, which has cost more than 40,000 lives.
After several meetings with Öcalan at his island prison, on Thursday the pro-Kurdish DEM party relayed his appeal for PKK to lay down its weapons and convene a congress to announce the organisation’s dissolution.
The PKK said on Saturday it was ready to convene a congress as Öcalan wanted, but “for this to happen, a suitable secure environment must be created” and Öcalan “must personally direct and lead it for the success of the congress”.
The group also said Öcalan’s prison conditions must be improved, adding that he “must be able to live and work in physical freedom and be able to establish unhindered relationships with anyone he wants, including his friends”.
After the last round of peace talks collapsed in 2015, no further contact was made until October when a hardline nationalist ally of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, offered a surprise peace gesture if Öcalan rejected violence.
While Erdoğan backed the rapprochement, his government cranked up pressure on the opposition, arresting hundreds of politicians, activists and journalists.
On Friday, Erdoğan said Öcalan’s appeal was a “historic opportunity”. He added that Turkey would “keep a close watch” to make sure the talks to end the insurgency were “brought to a successful conclusion”.
“When the pressure of terrorism and arms is eliminated, the space for politics in democracy will naturally expand,” Erdoğan promised.
Iraq has welcomed Öcalan’s call, saying it was “a positive and important step towards achieving stability in the region”.
The PKK’s presence in Iraq has been a recurrent source of tension between Baghdad and Ankara.
The group holds positions in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, where Turkey also maintains military bases and often carries out ground and air operations against the Kurdish militants.
Credit: AFP
