A Kurdish militia group that has waged a bloody insurgency in opposition to the Turkish state for 4 many years stated on Monday that it might lay down its arms and disband, a call that would reshape Turkish politics and reverberate in neighboring international locations.
The announcement by the Kurdistan Staff’ Occasion, identified by its Kurdish acronym, P.Okay.Okay., got here a number of months after its imprisoned chief, Abdullah Ocalan, urged the group to disarm and disband. In his February message, he stated the group’s armed wrestle had outlived its preliminary objective and that additional progress within the wrestle for Kurdish rights may very well be achieved by way of politics.
The P.Okay.Okay. started as a secessionist group that sought to create an impartial state for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. Extra just lately, it has stated that it sought larger rights for Kurds inside Turkey. It’s labeled as a terrorist group by Turkey, the USA and different international locations.
In a press release on Monday, the group echoed Mr. Ocalan’s name, saying that it had “carried the Kurdish difficulty to a stage the place it may be solved by democratic politics, and the P.Okay.Okay. has accomplished its mission in that sense.”
A current congress by the group’s leaders in northern Iraq had determined to finish “the work below the title of P.Okay.Okay.’’
The group stated Mr. Ocalan ought to lead the method of disarming, and it referred to as on Turkey’s Parliament to participate. The transfer may finish a battle that has claimed greater than 40,000 lives.
It was unclear what would occur subsequent. Mr. Ocalan has been held in close to isolation in a jail on an island within the Sea of Marmara after his seize by Turkish intelligence in 1999. The P.Okay.Okay. and pro-Kurdish politicians have referred to as for his launch, or no less than for a loosening of the restrictions on him to permit him to supervise the disarmament course of.
Many Kurds in Turkey have additionally expressed hopes that the top of the battle would lead the federal government to formally broaden Kurdish cultural and academic rights, however no new laws on such points seems imminent.
The long conflict, during which P.Okay.Okay. militants bombed civilian areas and the Turkish navy responded with nice drive, has led to pitched battles in Kurdish-majority cities.
Monday’s announcement is a boon for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He can declare to have executed what his predecessors didn’t do, and the P.Okay.Okay.’s dissolution may broaden his help amongst Kurds, which many analysts suspect that he covets to alter the Structure and search a 3rd presidential time period.
In a social media publish, Omar Celik, a spokesman for Mr. Erdogan’s governing Justice and Growth Occasion, stated the P.Okay.Okay.’s announcement was an vital step in Mr. Erdogan’s work to make sure a “terror-free Turkey.”
The P.Okay.Okay.’s declaration may additionally affect different Kurdish militias, notably in Syria, and shift regional dynamics past Turkey’s borders.
The Kurds — an ethnic group of roughly 40 million people — are unfold throughout Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. They had been promised however by no means granted their very own nation by world powers after World Battle I and have since launched varied rebellions in opposition to governments which have sought to suppress their cultural identification.
In almost each nation the place they stay, Kurds have confronted state-sponsored suppression of their language and tradition.
It was not instantly clear how the choice would have an effect on the P.Okay.Okay. bases hidden within the mountainous areas of Iraq’s northern Kurdish area. Turkey has repeatedly bombarded P.Okay.Okay. strongholds in northern Iraq, in addition to the group’s offshoot controlling the northeastern areas of Syria, branding them a terrorist menace close to its borders.
Turkish officers have stated publicly that the federal government provided no concessions to the P.Okay.Okay. to influence it to disarm. However officers from Turkey’s important pro-Kurdish social gathering have expressed hope that the federal government would broaden cultural and academic rights for Kurds.
Safak Timur contributed reporting.
