ISTANBUL: Outlawed Kurdish fighters on Saturday declared a ceasefire with Turkiye following a landmark call by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan asking the group to disband and end more than four decades of armed struggle.

It was the first reaction from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) after Ocalan this week called for the dissolution of the group and asked it to lay down arms.

“In order to pave the way for the implementation of (Ocalan’s) call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK executive committee said, quoted by the pro-PKK ANF news agency. “We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee based in northern Iraq said. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” it added.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union, has waged an insurgency since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for Kurds, who account for around 20 per cent of Turkiye’s 85 million people.

Turkish VP says ‘a new phase’ begins towards achieving the goal of a terror-free state

But more recently, the group has called for more autonomy, and cultural and linguistic rights, rather than independence. Since Ocalan was jailed in 1999 there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed, which has cost more than 40,000 lives.

After several meetings with Ocalan at his island prison, the pro-Kurdish DEM party on Thursday relayed his appeal for PKK to lay down its weapons and convene a congress to announce the organisation’s dissolution. The PKK said 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”.

The group also said Ocalan’s prison conditions must be eased, adding he “must be able to live and work in physical freedom and be able to establish unhindered relationships with anyone he wants.”

Turkiye’s vice president Cevdet Yilmaz said “a new phase” began toward achieving the goal of a “terror-free Turkiye”, without making any mention of the PKK statement. “The dissolution of the terrorist organisation without any bargain means a new environment and a new period in terms of development and democracy, as well as security,” he wrote on X.

Analysts say establishing a truce with the PKK would be beneficial for Turkiye and also for Syria, where strongman Bashar al-Assad was ousted late last year after a long and bloody civil war. “A peace deal with the PKK is likely to make it easier to reunify and establish a more stable Syria,” Anthony Skinner, director of research at Marlow Global, said. “This is a key objective for the Turkish government which has had to contend with the ongoing threat of cross-border mass migration and terrorism,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2025