Istanbul — In a historic move, imprisoned Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan called Thursday on members of the banned Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) to lay down their weapons to end a decades-long conflict with Turkey’s government that has killed tens of thousands of people and complicated U.S. relations with the NATO ally.
The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., along with the European Union, NATO and many other nations. Ocalan’s call for disarmament, if acted on by the PKK, is likely to have far-reaching implications for the entire Middle East, including for millions of ethnic Kurds living in Syria, Iraq and Iran.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Ocalan said in a letter read out by Kurdish politicians in Istanbul. “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
The PKK was established by Ocalan in 1978, initially seeking full independence and statehood for Turkey’s large Kurdish minority, but later asking for autonomy. Since then, as many as 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others displaced from their homes by the simmering conflict between the group and Turkish state forces. The PKK has carried out several major terrorist attacks in Turkey, killing scores of security forces but also civilians in Istanbul and Ankara.
YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty
Ocalan was arrested in 1999 and is serving a life sentence in a prison in northwest Turkey, but he’s still seen as the movement’s ideological leader. The reading of his letter was broadcast on screens set up in majority Kurdish cities in the southeast of Turkey, where it was cheered by crowds hopeful for peace.
“There is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realization of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way,” Ocalan said in his statement.
There was no immediate statement from the PKK’s leadership on Ocalan’s letter, but his call to disarm had been anticipated, and in a statement published by the group on February 12, the PKK hailed the move and said it would begin, “a process of change, transformation and restructuring.”
U.S. hopes announcement will “bring peace to this troubled region”
As a NATO member, Turkey is a strategic ally of the U.S., and it has played a particularly vital role, given its location at the junction of Asia and the Middle East, in counterterrorism efforts and promoting Mideast stability.
Close U.S. military cooperation with another Kurdish armed group based in neighboring Syria, the YPG, against ISIS during Syria’s civil war, caused serious friction with Ankara. Turkey has long argued that the YPG is an extension of the PKK, and that American support for the Kurdish forces was therefor an indirect endorsement of and support for the PKK.
The Trump administration welcomed Ocalan’s call, with U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes telling CNN on Thursday that it was, “a significant development and we hope that it will help assuage our Turkish allies about U.S. counter-ISIS partners in northeast Syria. We believe it will help bring peace to this troubled region.”
Berkay Mandiraci, senior Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, told CBS News a peace deal between the Turkish government and the PKK could “remove this long-standing thorn in bilateral ties,” and it could bring with it “a host of dividends for Turkey.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also expressed support for Ocalan’s disarmament call, with his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric telling reporters on Thursday that it was an “important development” that offered “a glimmer of hope that could lead to a resolution of the long-standing conflict.”
Mandiraci told CBS News an agreement between Ankara and the PKK could also help bring stability to Syria.
A new Syrian government, led by former Islamic extremist rebels who’ve disavowed militancy and publicly embraced secularism, is trying to assert itself and gain international support.
Mandiraci said a peace deal with the PKK in Turkey could bolster ongoing talks between the Kurdish forces that were backed by the U.S. and Syria’s interim government, aimed at integrating the Kurdish-controlled northeast region of Syria with the Syrian state.
Why would the PKK disarm now?
“After a decade of intensive fighting, the PKK seems to be weakened,” Mandiraci told CBS News, assessing the timing of Ocalan’s call. “The Turkish military drove the group out of Turkey’s southeast and pressed it deep into the steep and unforgiving mountains of northern Iraq.”
So far, however, no information has been shared publicly regarding the details of any negotiations that led to Ocalan’s call, nor how the process of disarming the group might actually work. The Turkish government has said nothing about what it might offer the PKK in exchange for disarmament.
Ocalan’s statement comes as the Turkish government faces accusations of a crackdown on dissent. Since local elections were held across the country in March 2024, more than 10 elected mayors have been removed from their posts and replaced by government appointees, mostly in Kurdish-majority cities.
So far, Ocalan’s call has drawn a muted response from Turkish officials. Efkan Ala, the deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, said the government was focused on the outcome, not the statement.
“The essence of the call is the laying down of arms and the dissolution of the terrorist organization,” Ala said. “We will look at the outcome. Of course, as Turkey, we will see whether this outcome will materialize.”
A similar attempt to end the fighting more than a decade ago failed, after a ceasefire that lasted two years collapsed in 2015, engulfing Turkish forces in a bloody conflict with the PKK.
