Turkey-PKK’s 40-year conflict being ended

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has declared it will implement a ceasefire with Turkey, heeding a call from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan to disarm.

In a statement on Saturday, the PKK said it hoped Turkey would release Ocalan, who has been imprisoned in solitary confinement since 1999, so he can lead a process of disarmament.

The statement by the group, published by the pro-PKK Firat news agency (ANF), 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 [Ocalan’s] call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK executive committee said in the statement quoted by ANF.

“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.

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.

The PKK said it hoped Ankara would release Ocalan, held in near total isolation since 1999, so he could lead a disarmament, adding that political and democratic conditions need to be established for the process to succeed.

Source: Agencies