The chief imprisoned with a Kurdish guerrilla movement who led a bloody insurrection against the Turkish state on Thursday to make his group laying his arms and dissolved, a pivotal declaration that could echo in neighboring countries and help end 40 years of fatal conflict.
Abdullah Ocalan, the chief of the Kurdistan workers’ party, or PKK, made his appeal in a written statement that was read aloud at a press conference by members of the Principal Pro-Kurdish Political Party of Turkey who had just visited him in prison.
He said that the group had gained ground at a time when “the democratic channels of politics were blocked” but had survived his life and had to dissolve.
“Suitable your congress and make a decision,” he said in the press release, read first aloud in Kurdish then in Turkish. “All groups must place their arms and the PKK must dissolve.” Turkey and Kurds must now go ahead “with the spirit of fraternity”, added the press release, saying that democracy was the only way to do so.
The press conference was filled with Kurdish journalists and politicians. Some in the public applauded and gave a standing ovation when a new image of the rarely photographed Mr. Ocalan appeared on a screen.
Mr. Ocalan’s rare message raised the possibility that a conflict that killed more than 40,000 people out of four decades can finally end.
If the PKK laid its arms, it would resolve the most sustainable internal security threat in Turkey and marks an important political achievement for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Many Turks would praise it for having ended the conflict and, if it was followed by new stages of conciliation to the Kurds, could encourage them to support an effort to change the Constitution to allow it to present themselves for a third presidential term.
The disarmament of the PKK could also change the dynamics elsewhere in the Middle East, given the deep influence of Mr. Ocalan on the members of the group in Turkey and Iraq as well as Kurdish militias in Syria and Iran.
But there was little indication of what would happen next.
There have been few public discussions on which would monitor respect for Mr. Ocalan’s appeal, which would happen to the combatants who comply with it or what – if necessary – the government offered in exchange for disarmament.
It also remains clear what Mr. Ocalan’s appeal will mean for the members of the PKK in Iraq, and for the militia led by the United States, which controls a large part of Northeast of Syria and has links with the Democratic Syrian forces of PKK, ventilated at the call of Mr. Ocalan, but said during an online event on an online event which was not linked to Mr. Ocalan.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and other countries.
The appeal of Mr. Ocalan came after a series of talks who included Turkish officials; Mr. Ocalan himself; and the members of the main pro-Kurdish party of Turkey, the Party of Equality and the Democracy of the People, or DEM
In a speech to the members of his political party in January, Erdogan said that the government had offered Mr. Ocalan the uncompromising group. But putting an end to the conflict would benefit Turks and the Kurds, he said.
The goal of the talks was to bring “the terrorist group to dissolve, to abandon its arms unconditionally,” he said.
But in an interview published last week by the Firat news agency linked to PKK, a senior member of the group suggested that many problems were not resolved.
“No one should think that there will be easy negotiation at the table, signatures will be made and that everything will be resolved,” said the main member Duran Kalkan. “The other side wants to eliminate the PKK”
The Kurdish group has been fighting against the Turkish state since the early 1980s, attacking police stations and military posts and bombing that killed many civilians. He began as a secessionist group who sought to create an independent state for the Kurdish minority of Turkey, but now says that she is looking for higher rights for the Kurds in Türkiye.
For many Turks, Mr. Ocalan is the most despised terrorist in the country. Turkish officials and the media often call them “baby killer” or “chief terrorist”. Sentenced in 1999 to lead an armed terrorist group, Mr. Ocalan has been in prison for a quarter of a century.
Turkey and the PKK have tried over the years to resolve the conflict, more recently through peace talks that started in 2011. But negotiations broke down in 2015, inaugurating a new deadly phase.
Last October, a powerful political ally of Mr. Erdogan made a surprising public appeal to Mr. Ocalan, asking him to tell his fighters to lay down arms and end the conflict. This, according to the politician, could open a way to his sentence for life in a Turkish prison to be completed.
This led to visits to limited prison of parents and political allies of Mr. Ocalan to explore the possibility of a new peace process.
The regional and national dynamics could have encouraged the Turkish government to take a new look at its conflict with the PKK conflicts that bubble in the Middle East may have motivated Turkey leaders to try to ensure stability at home.
The Turkish army has seriously degraded the military capacities of the PKK, which may have made the group more open to negotiations.
And the rise of a rebellious Turkish group in power in Syria in December left the Syrian democratic forces led by the Kurds in the northeast of vulnerable Syria and in danger of making its power erode.
“Turkey’s maneuvering space has widened considerably,” said Sinem Adar, a Turkey analyst based in Berlin at the German Institute for International Affairs and Security. “It is a moment now or never for Turkey” to weaken territorial control of the Kurdish militia in Syria, which it considers a threat to its security, she added.
Thursday in Diyarbakir, a Kurdish predominantly city in eastern Turkey, the disarmament call of Mr. Ocalan attracted mixed emotions.
Hundreds of people had gathered in the city center to listen to his message, which was broadcast through large speakers dotting Dagkapi square.
Some, like Baran Aydin, a 29-year-old Kurd who said he had been imprisoned for seven years for accusations related to the PKK and had been released only a week ago, said that they had the decision of Mr. Ocalan and hope. But no more frustration and confusion to frustration and confusion at the end of Kurdish reading.
“I don’t know what I feel,” said Sakir İlbey, a 58 -year -old Kurd. “Peace means being equal to a Turkish.”
But “I don’t trust the state,” he added.
Mem Erzen, 24, said that he expected him to expect that Mr. Ocalan would call for disarmament, but that he was nevertheless disappointed.
“I have witnessed almost my life,” he said. “I now understand that it is time for diplomacy,” he added. “But I’m sad.”
Murat Bayram Contributed reports.
