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FILE – In Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Thursday, February 27, 2025, young people hold a photo of the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan. They gather to listen to a statement from Ocalan, released by a delegation from the Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), shown live on a TV screen. (AP Photo/Metin Yoksu, File)
ANKARA – On Monday, a Kurdish group of militants revealed a monumental choice to dissolve and lay down arms, joining a new peace campaign with Turkey after forty years of combat.
The decision by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, was announced by the Firat News Agency, a media outlet close to the group. It comes days after it convened a party congress in northern Iraq.
In February, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group to convene a congress and formally decide to disband, marking a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.
On March 1, the PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire, but attached conditions, including the creation of a legal framework for peace negotiations.
The group has led an armed insurgency since 1984 that has left claimed tens of thousands of lives. It is listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.
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