ISTANBUL: Türkiye’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to lay down its arms on Thursday, a move that could end its 40-year conflict with Ankara and have far-reaching political and security consequences for the region.
A delegation of pro-Kurdish DEM Party visited Ocalan on Thursday in his island prison and later delivered his statement in nearby Istanbul.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” Ocalan said in a letter made public by DEM party members.
Ocalan wants his party to hold a congress and to formally agree to dissolve itself, they quoted him as saying.
The PKK is deemed a terrorist organisation by Türkiye and its Western allies.
More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its fight in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland for Kurds. It has since moved away from its separatist goals and instead sought more autonomy in southeast Türkiye and greater Kurdish rights.
The appeal from Ocalan could have implications for the major oil-exporting region of northern Iraq, where the PKK is based, and for neighbouring Syria, which is emerging after 13 years of civil war and the ouster in December of Bashar al Assad.
A Türkiye-PKK peace process collapsed a decade ago.
The call came four months after Ankara offered an olive branch to the 75-year-old who founded PKK.
Since Ocalan was jailed in 1999, there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed which erupted in 1984 and has cost more than 40,000 lives.
The last round of talks collapsed amid violence in 2015. — Agencies
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