ISTANBUK – The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Monday announced its dissolution, saying it was ending its armed struggle against the Turkish state and drawing a line under its bloody four-decade insurgency.
Founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK carried out attacks aimed at defending Kurdish autonomy in Turkey that cost more than 40,000 lives.
“The 12th PKK Congress has decided to dissolve the PKK’s organisational structure and end its method of armed struggle,” the group said in a statement published by the pro-Kurdish ANF news agency.
The move was welcomed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party as an “important step”, saying the implementation of the process would be “meticulously monitored” by the government.
The historic announcement came after an appeal by Ocalan, who on February 27 urged his fighters disarm and disband in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island, where he has been held since 1999.
He also asked the PKK to hold a congress to formalize the decision, which the call and declared a ceasefire, holding its congress early last week in Iraq’s Kandil mountains.
There its leader took “decisions of historic importance concerning the PKK’s activities”, ANF had reported on Friday.
AKP spokesman Omer Celik said if the decision were “implemented in practise and realised in all its dimensions” it would open the door to a new era.
“The PKK’s decision to dissolve itself and lay down its arms following the call from Imrali is an important step towards a terror-free Turkey,” Celik said.
