Outlawed Kurdish group calls on Ankara to release jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been held in near total isolation since 1999.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has declared it will implement a ceasefire with Turkiye, heeding a call from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan to disarm.
The statement by the outlawed group, published by the pro-PKK Firat news agency (ANF) on Saturday, 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.
The statement did not specify a timeline for the group to disband.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Turkiye would “always keep our iron fist ready in case the hand we extend is left in the air or bitten”.
Speaking at a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner in Istanbul on Saturday, Erdogan added: “We will continue our ongoing [military] operations, if necessary, until we eliminate the last terrorist without leaving a single stone on top of another, without leaving a single head on his shoulder.”
The government’s first response to the ceasefire came earlier on Saturday from Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz.
“A new phase has been entered towards the goal of a terror-free Turkiye. … We hope that this opportunity will be seized, this effort will be concluded quickly and successfully,” he posted on X.
On Friday, Erdogan welcomed Ocalan’s appeal, describing it as a “historic opportunity” for peace.
He said Turkiye would “keep a close watch” to make sure the talks to end the conflict were “brought to a successful conclusion”.
“When the pressure of terrorism and arms is eliminated, the space for politics in democracy will naturally expand,” Erdogan promised.
The PKK – designated a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union – has waged an armed uprising since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for Kurds, who account for about 20 percent of Turkiye’s 85 million people.
Ocalan, 75, has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali, off Istanbul after being convicted of treason. Despite his incarceration, he continues to wield significant influence over the PKK, which he founded in 1978.
Since Ocalan was jailed, various attempts to end the bloodshed, which has killed more than 40,000 people, have ended in failure – most recently in 2015.
The PKK said on Saturday it was ready to convene a congress as Ocalan wanted but “for this to happen, a suitable secure environment must be created” and Ocalan “must personally direct and lead it for the success of the congress”.
Turkiye’s neighbour Iraq has welcomed Ocalan’s call, saying it was “a positive and important step towards achieving stability in the region”.
The PKK’s presence in Iraq has been a recurrent source of tension between Baghdad and Ankara. The group holds positions in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, where Turkiye also maintains military bases and often carries out ground and air operations against Kurdish armed groups.
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