The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) announced a ceasefire with Turkey today after a historic call by the organization's imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, who asked earlier this week for the group to disband and end the more than 40-year armed struggle, Agence France-Presse reports, quoted by BTA.
Today's announcement was the first reaction from the PKK after the 75-year-old Ocalan's call to lay down arms and disband, the agency notes.
"We agree with the content of the call and declare that we will follow and implement it," the organization's committee based in northern Iraq said. "None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked", the statement, quoted by the PKK-affiliated Firat news agency, said.
The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has been waging an armed struggle since 1984 with the aim of creating a separate state for the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Turkey's 85 million population, the agency noted. However, the group has recently called for more autonomy, cultural and linguistic, rather than independence.
Since Ocalan was imprisoned in 1999, there have been several attempts to end the bloodshed that has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people. The last peace talks collapsed in 2025.
After several meetings with Öcalan in his prison on Imrali island, the pro-Kurdish DEM party on Thursday conveyed his call for the PKK to lay down its arms and convene a congress to declare the dissolution of the organization.
The PKK said today that it was ready to convene a congress as Öcalan requested, but "for this to happen, an appropriate security environment must be created" and that for the congress to be successful, Öcalan "must personally guide and lead it."
The group also said that prison conditions for Öcalan, who is being held in solitary confinement on Imrali island, should be eased, adding that "he must be able to live and work in physical freedom and be able to establish contacts with whomever he wants without hindrance." wants".
The Associated Press notes that the PKK's announcement comes against a backdrop of fundamental changes in the region, including a reconfiguration of power in neighboring Syria after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, the weakening of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon and the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The PKK's executive committee statement noted that Öcalan's call showed that "a new historical process has begun in Kurdistan and the Middle East". The term Kurdistan refers to parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran populated by Kurds, the AP points out.
Ocalan's call came at a time when Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the DEM, is facing pressure, and several of its mayors have been removed from office in recent months and replaced with government-appointed administrators.
AFP recalls that after the failure of the last peace talks in 2015, no further contacts were made with the PKK until Devlet Bahceli, a hardline nationalist ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made a surprising peace gesture to Ocalan in October. Bahçeli suggested that the PKK founder be released from prison if his organization renounces violence and disbands.
On Friday, Erdogan described Ocalan's call as a "historic opportunity", adding that Turkey "will watch closely" to make sure that talks to end the insurgency "have come to a successful conclusion".
"We have the opportunity to take a historic step towards tearing down the wall of terror that stands between the 1,000-year brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples," Erdogan said on Friday.
Ocalan retains significant influence over the Kurdish movement despite his 25-year stint in prison, during which the PKK was led by other leaders who fled and found refuge in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, the AP noted.
In Syria, Kurdish PKK-linked fighters have been engaged in intense fighting with Turkish-backed forces on the ground. The leader of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Ocalan's call for a ceasefire did not apply to his group in Syria.
However, the Turkish government has said that all Kurdish groups it says are linked to the PKK - whether in Turkey, Syria or Iraq - must disband.
In recent years, the PKK has been limited to isolated attacks on Turkish territory, and the Turkish military, supported by armed drones, has increasingly pushed the organization's fighters across the mountainous border into Iraq.