The prohibited Kurds militants on Saturday declared a stop the fire with Turkiye after a historic call of the PKK imprisoned, Abdullah Ocalan, asking the group to dissolve.
It was the first reaction of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after Ocalan this week requested the dissolution of the group and asked him to fall arms after fighting the Turkish state for more than four decades.
“To pave the way for the implementation of the leader’s call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a high effective fire as of today,” said PKK Executive Committee, referring to Ocalan and cited by the Pro-Pkk ANF news agency.
“We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will continue and implement it,” said the headquarters in northern Iraq.
“None of our forces will take armed measures unless they are attacked,” he added.
The PKK, designated by a Turkiye terrorist group, the United States and the European Union, has fought an insurgency since 1984 with the aim of forcing a homeland for the Kurds, which represent about 20 percent of the 85 million people in Turkey.
Since Ocalan was imprisoned in 1999, there have been several attempts to end blood spill, which has cost more than 40,000 lives.
After several meetings with Ocalan in the prison of his island, the Dem Pro-Kurdo party on Thursday transmitted his appeal for the PKK to place his weapons and summon a congress to announce the dissolution of the organization.
The PKK said on Saturday that it was ready to summon a congress like Ocalan wanted, but “for this to happen, you must create an adequate safe environment” and Ocalan “must direct it personally and take it to the success of Congress.”
Better prison conditions
The group also said that the conditions of the Ocalan prison must be relieved, and added that “it must be able to live and work in physical freedom and establish relationships without obstacles with anyone who wants, including their friends.”
After the last round of peace conversations collapsed in 2015, no more contact was made until October when a nation -line habit of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered a surprise gesture of peace if Ocalan rejected violence.
While Erdogan supported the approach, his government increased the pressure on the opposition, arrested hundreds of politicians, activists and journalists.
Erdogan said Friday that the appeal of Olalan was a “historical opportunity.”
He said Turkiye “would closely monitor” to make sure the conversations to end the insurgency were “brought to a successful conclusion.”
“When the pressure of terrorism and weapons is eliminated, the space for politics in democracy will expand naturally,” said Erdogan.
Iraq has welcomed Ocalan’s call, saying that it was “a positive and important step to achieve stability in the region.”
The presence of PKK in Iraq has been a recurring tension source between Baghdad and Ankara.
The group occupies positions in the autonomous region of the Kurdistan of Iraq, where Turkiye also maintains military bases and, often, carries out terrestrial and aerial operations against the Kurdish militants.
