Kurdish militant group responds to call from its jailed leader, Abdullah \u00d6calan, to lay down arms
\n Diyarbak\u0131r
\nA Kurdish militia has declared a ceasefire in its 40-year insurgency against Turkey after its imprisoned leader called for the group to disarm and dissolve earlier this week.
\n\u201cWe are declaring a ceasefire to be effective from today on. None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,\u201d the executive committee of the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 party (PKK) said in a statement.
\nThe announcement followed a call from the jailed PKK founding member Abdullah \u00d6calan earlier this week, signalling a desire to end an armed insurgency that has lasted for more than 40 years across south-eastern Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq and into neighbouring Iran. \u00d6calan, 75, has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since being captured by Turkish security forces in Kenya in 1999.
\n\u201cI am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,\u201d he said in a letter read out to a jubilant crowd of allies in Istanbul. \u201cAll groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.\u201d
\nThe announcement rippled across the Middle East, and may affect an array of Kurdish militia groups with long-held but varied ties to the PKK. The group, which is classified as terrorist in Turkey, the US and the UK, called \u00d6calan\u2019s announcement part of \u201ca new historic process\u201d for the Middle East.
\nThe group\u2019s executive committee also called for \u00d6calan to be freed from his island prison, in order to \u201cpersonally direct\u201d a meeting that would prompt them to lay down their weapons. \u201cIn order for this to happen, a suitable security environment must be created,\u201d it said.
\nThe Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, also called \u00d6calan\u2019s message the start of a new phase for peace efforts, although his government has publicly rebuffed suggestions that \u00d6calan\u2019s call could be followed by peace talks.
\n\u201cThere is an opportunity to take a historic step toward tearing down the wall of terror that has stood between [the Turkish and Kurdish people\u2019s] 1,000-year-old brotherhood,\u201d he said.
\nErdo\u011fan\u2019s administration has instead sought a unilateral ceasefire from the PKK, after his rightwing nationalist coalition partner, Devlet Bah\u00e7eli, suggested last October in the Turkish parliament that \u00d6calan could be granted a form of parole if the group were to lay down its arms and disband.
\nAn earlier ceasefire between the PKK and Ankara broke down in 2015, prompting a period of violent attacks and reprisals across northern Iraq, Turkey and Syria that claimed thousands of lives. The International Crisis Group estimates that 7,152 people have since been killed in clashes or terror attacks in Turkey and northern Iraq, including 646 civilians, 1,494 members of the Turkish security forces and 4,786 militants.
\nThe PKK executive committee said it agreed with the contents of \u00d6calan\u2019s call, adding that \u201cwe will fully comply with and implement the requirements of the call on our part\u201d. Even so, the group echoed the statements of Kurdish politicians, campaigners and leaders in adding that \u201cdemocratic politics and legal grounds must also be secured for its success\u201d.
\nAmid months of shuttle negotiations involving Turkey\u2019s pro-Kurdish Peoples\u2019 Equality and Democracy (DEM) party before \u00d6calan\u2019s announcement, Turkish authorities arrested dozens of its members.
\nIn a series of dawn raids across 51 Turkish cities last month, Turkish forces detained at least 282 people including members of DEM, journalists and academics. The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, accused those arrested of being \u201csuspected members of a terrorist organisation\u201d, later mentioning the PKK.
\nDespite the wave of arrests, some observers believe Erdo\u011fan and his allies could seek the group\u2019s support for constitutional changes to allow him to remain in power.
\n\u201cThere will be a series of meetings next week, including state officials and politicians, and many things will become clearer and more concrete. We hope that everything will be arranged in the next three months,\u201d said S\u0131rr\u0131 S\u00fcreyya \u00d6nder, a member of DEM who visited \u00d6calan in prison and brought his letter back to Istanbul.
\n\u00d6calan\u2019s announcement has the potential to affect Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria that are negotiating their future position with Damascus, as well as battling Turkish-backed militias in the area.
\nThe Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed coalition of militia groups that has fought Islamic State militants in Syria for a decade, are under increasing pressure from Damascus and Ankara despite their efforts to remain in control of swaths of north-eastern Syria including two major cities.
\nThe group said Turkish forces conducted airstrikes and bombardments near the Tishrin dam, a frequent flashpoint of conflict between the SDF and Turkish-backed militias since the overthrow of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last December.
\nGen Mazloum Abdi, the commander-in-chief of the SDF, said earlier this week that \u00d6calan had written and informed him about the call to disarm before the announcement.
\nWhile he hoped the PKK\u2019s disarmament would quell Turkish airstrikes on territory that the SDF controls, he said, \u201cto be clear, this only concerns the PKK and is nothing related to us here in Syria\u201d.
\nZiya Meral, a lecturer in diplomatic studies at Soas in London, and an expert on Turkish affairs, said the broader geopolitical context for the PKK today was different from the initial peace process in 2015, creating greater incentives for the group to explore talks with Ankara.
\n\u201cFrom 2018 until now, Turkish security operations have really suffocated the PKK\u2019s operational space, and this has expanded to Syria and Iraq,\u201d said Meral, adding that in 2015, the PKK and its aligned group in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, felt more emboldened as they were a key partner for the US in the fight against Isis.
\n\u201cToday Bashar al-Assad a former ally of the PKK is now gone in Syria and pressure is growing for the SDF to disband too, so a change in approach was needed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kurdish militant group responds to call from its jailed leader, Abdullah \u00d6calan, to lay down arms Diyarbak\u0131r A Kurdish militia has declared a ceasefire in its 40-year insurgency against Turkey after its imprisoned leader called for the group to disarm and dissolve earlier this week. \u201cWe are declaring a ceasefire to be effective from today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-464606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n