ERBIL (Middle East Eye) – The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is expected to announce that it has decided to end its armed struggle against Turkey and will disband itself, two sources familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.
The decision follows a statement issued in February by the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in which he called on the organization he founded more than 40 years ago to lay down its arms.
On Friday, the PKK said that it held a congress from 5 to 7 May and discussed Ocalan’s call.
It said it has taken decisions that have historical importance, “which we will announce very soon with relevant documents and information”.
In his February statement, Ocalan described the armed struggle as a product of a bygone era. In a one-and-a-half-page message, Ocalan explained that the PKK’s armed struggle was once necessary due to Turkish state policies that denied Kurdish identity and restricted Kurds’ rights and freedoms.
“The PKK was born in the 20th century, in the most violent epoch of human history - amidst the two world wars, under the shadow of real socialism and the Cold War,” Ocalan wrote.
However, he argued that the Turkish government’s recent democratic reforms on Kurdish issues, along with regional developments, have rendered armed struggle obsolete.
“All groups must lay down their arms, and the PKK must dissolve itself,” he said.
Ocalan’s reference to “all groups” is understood to include the PKK’s affiliates and offshoots, as well as its umbrella organization, the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), which operates in those countries as well as Iraq and Turkey.
In March, the PKK publicly announced that it would comply with Ocalan’s directive and declared a ceasefire.
As part of ongoing negotiations between Ocalan and the Turkish government, a separate deal was reached in March between Mazlum Abdi Şahin, commander of the PKK-linked so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and Syria’s new rulers.
The agreement grants Damascus full control over state institutions in northeastern Syria, effectively nullifying the possibility of a Kurdish state or a federal system in the country.