The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has been locked in bloody conflict with Türkiye for more than four decades, has decided to disband and end its armed struggle, group members and Turkish leaders said yesterday.
Since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984 – originally with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state – the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, exerted a huge economic burden and fuelled social tensions.
The PKK’s decision, at a congress last week, could boost Nato member Türkiye’s political and economic stability and encourage moves to ease tensions in neighbouring Iraq and Syria, where Kurdish forces are allied with US forces.
The dramatic announcement comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to capitalise on what he sees as the vulnerabilities of affiliated Kurdish forces in Syria after the fall of former President Bashar Al Assad to Türkiye-backed rebels in December.
It also comes amid the group’s increasingly weakened position in northern Iraq, where it is based, after having been pushed out of Türkiye and well beyond its borders.
While Ankara welcomed the decision to dissolve, it does not guarantee peace. Rather it paves the way for agreeing a tricky legal framework for securely disarming the PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Türkiye and its Western allies.
“The PKK 12th Congress decided to dissolve the PKK’s organisational structure... and end the armed struggle,” Firat news agency reported it saying as it closed a congress.
A PKK official confirmed the decision and said all military operations would cease ‘immediately’, adding weapon handovers were contingent on Ankara’s response and approach to Kurdish rights, and the fate of PKK fighters and leaders.
Kurds make up some 20 per cent of Türkiye’s 86 million population.
The PKK held the congress in response to a February call to disband from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999. It said yesterday that he would manage the process.
However, it was not clear whether Ankara agreed to Ocalan’s continued role, which polls suggest could be unpopular among Turks. Nor were details available on how the disarmament and breakup of the PKK would happen in practice.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the PKK decision was of ‘historic importance’ and could bring ‘lasting peace and stability’ for all peoples of the region.
“There are practical steps that will be taken and we will follow those closely,” he told a Press conference alongside the Syrian and Jordanian foreign ministers in Ankara yesterday.
It was also unclear how the process would affect the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria, if at all. YPG leads a US-allied force against Islamic State there and is regarded by Türkiye as a PKK affiliate.
YPG has previously said Ocalan’s call did not apply to it, contradicting Ankara’s view. It did not immediately comment on the PKK’s announcement.
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