Kurdish group calls on Ankara to release jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who been held near total isolation since 1999.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has declared it will implement a ceasefire with Turkiye, heeding a call from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan to disarm, Kurdish media reports.
The announcement by the outlawed group, reported by the pro-PKK Firat news agency (ANF) on Saturday, is seen as a major step towards ending a 40-year conflict with the Turkish state.
“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 in a statement quoted by ANF, referring to Ocalan.
“We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee said.
“None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” it added.
The group said it hoped Ankara would release Ocalan, held in near total isolation since 1999, so he can lead a process of disarmament, adding that the necessary political and democratic conditions need to be established for the process to succeed.
The statement did not specifically set a timeline for when the group will disband.
On Thursday, Ocalan made a historic call from prison for the party to lay down its arms, dissolve itself and end its decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.
Ocalan, 75, has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali, off Istanbul, since 1999, after being convicted of treason. Despite his incarceration, he continues to wield significant influence over the PKK, which he founded in 1978.
A day after, Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed Ocalan’s call, describing it as a “historic opportunity” for peace.
He said Turkiye 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,” Erdogan promised.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union, has waged an insurgency since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for Kurds, who account for around 20 percent of Turkiye’s 85 million people.
Since Ocalan was jailed in 1999, there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed, which has killed more than 40,000 people.
Previous peace efforts with the PKK had ended in failure, most recently in 2015.
The PKK said on Saturday it was ready to convene a congress as Ocalan wanted, but “for this to happen, a suitable secure environment must be created” and Ocalan “must personally direct and lead it for the success of the congress”.
Turkiye’s neighbour, Iraq, has welcomed Ocalan’s call, saying it was “a positive and important step towards achieving stability in the region”.
The PKK’s presence in Iraq has has been a recurrent source of tension between Baghdad and Ankara. The group holds positions in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, where Turkiye also maintains military bases and often carries out ground and air operations against the Kurdish armed groups.
