Jailed Kurdish militant leader calls for end to conflict with Turkiye

Turkiye’s jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan today called on his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down its arms, a move that could end its 40-year conflict with Ankara and have far-reaching political and security consequences for the region, Reuters reports.

A delegation of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party visited Ocalan today 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 Turkiye, the US, EU and others.

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 Turkiye 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.

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