Jailed Kurdish PKK leader Ocalan issues call to lay down arms

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed chief of the outlawed Kurdish group PKK, has referred to as on his motion to put down its arms and dissolve itself.

His assertion, learn out in a letter by MPs from a pro-Kurdish occasion, was geared toward ending 4 a long time of armed wrestle in south-eastern Turkey during which tens of 1000’s of individuals have been killed.

Ocalan, 75, had earlier met the MPs for a number of hours on Imrali, an island within the Sea of Marmara south-west of Istanbul the place he has been imprisoned in solitary confinement since 1999.

His announcement got here months after ultra-nationalist chief Devlet Bahceli, who’s an ally of Turkey’s authorities, launched an initiative to carry an finish to the battle.

“There is no such thing as a different to democracy within the pursuit and realisation of a political system,” Ocalan’s letter learn. “Democratic consensus is the elemental manner.”

The letter was learn out by Dem occasion members Ahmet Turk and Pervin Buldan in each Kurdish and Turkish at a resort in Istanbul, after their third go to to Imrali island in latest months.

Interesting to members of the PKK – the Kurdistan Staff’ Occasion – Ocalan stated “all teams should lay their arms and the PKK should dissolve itself”.

He stated the motion – banned as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US – was fashioned primarily as a result of “the channels of democratic politics have been closed”.

Nevertheless, Devlet Bahceli, backed by optimistic indicators from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and different political events, had created the fitting atmosphere for the PKK to put down its arms, he added.

Bahceli has for years pushed for robust navy motion towards the PKK, however final October he shocked colleagues by shaking fingers with MPs from the Dem occasion in parliament. He then steered Ocalan may very well be given parole if he gave up violence and dissolved his armed group.

There was cautious optimism from some quarters that the 40-year battle would come to an finish.

“We’ll take a look at the result,” stated a number one member of Erdogan’s ruling AKP, Efkan Ala.

The most important opposition occasion, the secular CHP, stated it will convene a gathering on Thursday night.

Pervin Buldan and Dem occasion colleague Sirri Sureyya Onder had already met Ocalan twice in latest weeks, they usually have briefed different events on their visits.

Onder instructed an viewers made up largely of Kurdish politicians and journalists that they have been at a optimistic turning level in historical past.

Kurdish leaders largely welcomed the assertion and native studies stated 1000’s of individuals gathered to observe the assertion on large screens within the cities of Diyarbakir and Van within the predominantly Kurdish south-east.

Nevertheless, important questions stay amongst each the Kurdish and Turkish public over what the following step is perhaps.

Not everybody was satisfied issues would change.

Final week a senior PKK commander, Duran Kalkan, warned that the ruling AKP was not on the lookout for an answer however to “take over, destroy and annihilate”.

Kurdish politicians and journalists had confronted a crackdown and the Turkish military was engaged in navy operations in Iraqi Kurdistan and north-eastern Syria, he added.

“[Erdogan} is provoking and instigating war like a ‘war baron’,” he told a pro-PKK TV channel.

Turkish-backed forces in northeastern Syria have intensified their campaign against Kurdish forces and last month called on Syria’s new leaders to eliminate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Pro-Kurdish politicians have been targeted by a wave of arrests and jail sentences in recent years.

Last year the two leaders of the pro-Kurdish HDP, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, were imprisoned for 42 years and 30 years respectively over deadly riots in 2014. They had already been in prison since 2016.

Kurdish politicians said it was a “black stain” on Turkey’s justice system and the HDP was subsequently reformed as the Dem party.

Some 40,000 people have died since the PKK’s insurgency began.

There was a spike in violence in southeastern Turkey from 2015-17 when a two-and-a-half year ceasefire broke down.

More recently, in October the PKK claimed an attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) headquarters near Ankara which left five people dead.

While Ocalan’s letter was being read out, the opposition Good party hung a large black banner on its headquarters remembering victims of the PKK: “We will not forget, we will not let them be forgotten.”