The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Monday, May 12th, announced its dissolution, saying it was ending its armed struggle against the Turkish state and drawing a line under its deadly four-decade insurgency.
Founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of attacks against the Turkish state that would cost more than 40,000 lives.
“The 12th PKK Congress has decided to dissolve the PKK’s organisational structure and end its method of armed struggle,” the group said in a statement.
The move was welcomed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party as an “important step,” but it warned the process would be “meticulously monitored” by the government.
The historic announcement came after an appeal by Öcalan, who on February 27 urged his fighters to disarm and disband in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island, where he has been held since 1999.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington, and Brussels, has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
Its original aim was to carve out a homeland for Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s 85 million people.
