British media The Guardian report said that the banned Kurdish rebel group PKK fighting against Turkey has announced a ceasefire following the historic call of its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ojalan, who this week called for the group's dissolution to surrender.
Ojalan After the call, the first group to dissolve the group and clarify its position in the poison. The executive committee of PKK said in a statement, ‘To facilitate the implementation of the call for peace and democratic society, we are promulgating a ceasefire from today.’
The committee also said, ‘We are fully accepting the poison of this call and will follow and implement it. If none of our forces are attacked, they will not take any armed action.’
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has been in the armed rebellion since 1984, aiming to establish a separate motherland for the Kurds, with a 20 percent of the 85 million people in Turkey.
Earlier, Ojalan had been imprisoned in 1999 and had taken the initiative to end the conflict many times. After several meetings with Ojalan, the pro-Kurdish DEM Party issued a message last Thursday, saying that the message was said to be the dissolution of the organization through a call to Congress and the dissolution of the organization.
On Saturday, PKK has learned that they are ready to call a Congress based on Ojalan's call, but it has to ‘create a suitable and safe environment’ and Ojalan will have to ‘perform and lead it in person’ to make the Congress a success.’
The group also knows that Ojalan's prison conditions should be improved and he should be able to ‘live and work freely and have unhindered contact with anyone, including his friends’.
Earlier, the last round of peace talks in 2015 was broken, but there was no dialogue for a long time. But last October, Turkish President Recep Taipe Erdogan sent an unexpected message of peace to Ojalan, where he was a condition, if he was a condition that he was a condition if he was if he was the condition. Abandoning violence, however, new discussions may occur.
While Erdogan has supported the initiative, his government is still under attack to repress the opposition. Hundreds of politicians, activists and journalists have already been arrested. On Friday, Erdogan called Ozalan a ‘historic opportunity’ and said Turkey would ‘closely monitor’ the talks to reach a successful outcome.
Erdogan said, ‘When the threat of terrorism and weapons is removed, then the scope of politics in democracy will naturally expand.’
The US welcomed Ojalan's call, calling it a ‘positive and important step toward achieving regional stability’ and the presence of PKK in Iraq has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Ankara, while the US has welcomed the ceasefire.
The group is located in the swast of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, with Turkish military bases in the region and the country has been conducting ground and air raids against Kurdish rebels.
