The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) announces its dissolution
The Kurdish militia accepts the call of its historic leader, Abudullah Öcalan, imprisoned in Türkiye for 25 years.
BarcelonaThe Kurdish PKK guerrilla group announced its dissolution and the end of its armed struggle on Monday after 40 years of guerrilla activity against the Turkish state. The organization thus accepts the call to lay down arms made in February by its historic leader, Abdullah Öcalan, Imprisoned in Turkey for over 25 years. In March, the guerrilla party had halted armed activities and announced the holding of a congress.
"The 12th Congress of the PKK has decided to dissolve the organizational structure and end the method of armed struggle, the implementation of which will be directed and carried out by leader APO [Öcalan], thus putting an end to the activities carried out under the name of the PKK," the guerrilla group announced in a statement.
The PKK, which emerged in the 1970s with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey, has been at odds with the Turkish government since the 1980s. The armed conflict has caused more than 40,000 deaths and has marked Turkey's recent history. Repression, military attacks, and persistent Kurdish resistance have turned the region into an almost constant battlefield.
If successful, the PKK's decision could have implications beyond Turkey, because Öcalan is a beacon for PKK operations in Syria and Iraq as well. Previous efforts to end the insurgency, first between 2009 and 2011 and then between 2013 and 2015, failed and resulted in increased violence.
Since that last round of talks ten years ago, there had been no further rapprochement between Turkey and the PKK. Until October, when the leader of an ultranationalist party allied with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a surprising statement suggesting parole for Öcalan if he announced the group's dissolution.
Omer Çelik, the spokesman for President Erdogan's AKP party, has called the PKK's decision to disband "an important step toward a terror-free Turkey." President Erdogan is expected to convene a meeting of his cabinet this afternoon, and afterward, he will issue an official statement on behalf of the Turkish government regarding the PKK's announcement.
