Kurdish militia declares ceasefire following leader's call to end five-decade insurgency with Turkey
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militia on Saturday declared an immediate ceasefire, two days after its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan called on fighters to lay down their arms and dissolve the group.
If accepted by Turkey, the declaration could bring about the end of a decades-long conflict estimated to have killed at least 40,000 people and rippled across the borders of multiple neighboring countries.
'We agree with the content of Leader Ocalan's call as it is, and we state that we will comply with and implement the requirements of the call from our own side. We declare a ceasefire effective as of today,' the PKK Executive Committee said in a statement published by the Firat News Agency, a media outlet close to the group.
The Executive Committee commended Ocalan's call, describing it as a manifesto that 'illuminates the path of all forces of freedom and democracy.'
The statement added that, for the political process to be successful, 'democratic politics and legal grounds must also be appropriate.'
The conflict between the PKK and Turkey has had devastating effects on Turkey and neighbors. Ocalan's peace call on Thursday marked a major turning point and could have far-reaching implications for the Middle East.
'I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,' he wrote in a statement Thursday that was read by Turkish lawmakers. 'All groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.'
For almost five decades, Turkey has been at war with the PKK, founded by Ocalan in 1978. Much of the fighting has focused on the group's desire to establish an independent Kurdish state in the country's southeast. But in recent years the group has called for more autonomy within Turkey instead.
Earlier this week, Ocalan noted how the mutual cooperation between Turks and Kurds was broken in the last 200 years, but said: 'Today, the main task is to restructure the historical relationship, which has become extremely fragile.'
In recent months, prospects of Kurdish-Turkish peace were recharged by an unusual overture from far-right Turkish lawmaker Devlet Bahceli, an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who invited Ocalan to come to parliament and 'declare that he has laid down his arms.'
Ocalan was captured in 1999 in Kenya by Turkish authorities, reportedly with the help of the CIA, and was sentenced in Turkey to life in prison for treason, with limited contact with the outside world.
But over the past few months, at least three delegations have visited him in prison
Kurds are the biggest minority in Turkey, making up between 15% and 20% of the population, according to Minority Rights Group International. They also have a significant presence in northern Syria, northern Iraq and Iran.
Violence flared in the country in August 1984 when fighters from the PKK killed two Turkish soldiers. Over the years, the PKK has transformed into a militant arm of a regional ethnic struggle to carry on the Kurdish culture, as the death toll mounted.
About a decade ago, Ocalan made a similar call to his followers to lay down their arms. But the 2013 peace process soon collapsed as tensions reignited, dragging Turkey and the PKK back into a bloody war and ending a two-year ceasefire.
The Kurdish people have had a complicated relationship with Erdogan, who courted them during his early years in power by granting them more rights and reversing restrictions on the use of their language, and worked on the brief peace process with the PKK.
Erdogan has been eyeing a constitutional change that will allow him to run for a third term in the country's 2028 elections. The move requires a two-thirds majority vote in parliament.
The ceasefire came, some experts note, as the president seeks the support of the third-biggest party in the parliament, the pro-Kurdish DEM party, whose lawmakers liaised between Ocalan and government and read out the Kurdish leader's statement from prison on Thursday.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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