MONITORING (SW) – Turkey’s jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan has called on his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down arms, a move that could end its 40-year conflict with Ankara and have far-reaching political and security consequences for the region.
If the PKK’s leadership heeds its founder’s appeal, which is not guaranteed, President Tayyip Erdogan would gain a historic opportunity to pacify and develop southern Turkey, where violence has killed thousands of people and devastated the regional economy.
Meanwhile, Ocalan, now 75, could see his dream of peace during his lifetime realized.
For neighboring Syria, the new administration may be able to assert more control over its Kurdish north and unite a nation fractured by civil war, while it would also remove a constant flashpoint in Kurdish-run, oil-rich northern Iraq where the PKK set up its base two decades ago.
More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its armed campaign in 1984 for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey.
It has since moved away from its separatist goals and instead sought more autonomy for southeast Turkey and greater Kurdish rights.
A close political ally of Erdogan proposed four months ago that Ocalan order his fighters to end their armed struggle, a decade after a previous Turkey-PKK peace process collapsed.
In his message, Ocalan urged Turkey to show respect for ethnic minorities, freedom of expression and the right to democratic self-organization.
