Öcalan’s message is set to ripple across factions of Kurdish armed groups spread across northeastern Syria and northern Iraq with links to the PKK, particularly the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who battled IS militants and remain in control of a swath of territory including two major cities in eastern Syria.
Abdullah Öcalan, a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a group long regarded as a terrorist organisation in Turkey as well as in Britain and the US, issued the message in a letter read out by allies in Istanbul.
The ageing leader of a Kurdish militant group imprisoned on a remote Turkish island has called on the group to disarm and dissolve itself, signalling the start of a fragile peace with Turkey after four decades of guerrilla warfare, attacks and reprisals.
Gönül Töl, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Öcalan likely decided the time was right to call for an end to hostilities as “he thinks things are not going well for the PKK right now”.
The International Crisis Group thinktank estimates that more than 7,152 people have been killed in clashes or attacks in Turkey and northern Iraq in the years since, including 646 civilians, over 4,000 militants, and almost 1,500 members of Turkish security forces.
