PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan is calling from prison for an end to the armed struggle against Turkey and the disbandment of the organization. This would end a bloody conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives for more than 40 years.
The leader of the outlawed PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, is calling for an end to the armed struggle against Turkey. All PKK fighters must lay down their arms and the group must disband, says a statement by Öcalan, read by the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party.
The PKK has been waging an armed struggle against Turkey since 1984
Öcalan, 76, has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali since 1999. A delegation from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party visited him in prison shortly before the statement.
Abdullah Öcalan founded the PKK in 1978. In the 1990s, it became a guerrilla organization with over 10,000 fighters. The group is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the EU. It has been waging an armed struggle against Turkey since 1984, which has claimed over 40,000 victims. Numerous attempts at a truce have failed, most recently in 2015.
A similar declaration to end the conflict has been expected for weeks. In October 2024, Davlet Bahçeli, the chairman of the ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party, Erdogan's coalition partner in the government, raised cautious hopes for a new peace process. Bahçeli, who had previously been an outspoken opponent of reconciliation with the PKK, offered to release Abdullah Öcalan from prison if the PKK stopped fighting Turkey and disbanded.
Öcalan's statement comes as Turkey and the United States are negotiating the future of Kurdish forces in Syria after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Erdogan wants the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which includes PKK-linked fighters, to be disbanded. Öcalan's call for disarmament could influence those talks.
PKK leaders are likely to listen to Öcalan
Despite his decade-long imprisonment on the Imrali island off the coast of Istanbul, Abdullah Öcalan continues to wield enormous influence within the PKK. Observers say the group's current leaders are also likely to heed Öcalan's call.
The Kurds are the world's largest stateless people. There are an estimated 12 million Kurds in Turkey, six million in Iraq and Iran, and three million in Syria.