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Ocalan called on the PKK to lay down arms

2025.02.28, 15:09
Ocalan called on the PKK to lay down arms

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdish group PKK, has called on his movement to lay down its arms and dissolve itself.

Gunaz.tv

His statement, read out in a letter by MPs from a pro-Kurdish party, was aimed at ending four decades of armed struggle in south-eastern Turkey in which tens of thousands of people have been killed.

Ocalan, 75, had earlier met the MPs for several hours on Imrali, an island in the Sea of Marmara south-west of Istanbul where he has been imprisoned in solitary confinement since 1999.

The letter was read out by Dem party members Ahmet Turk and Pervin Buldan in both Kurdish and Turkish at a hotel in Istanbul, after their third visit to Imrali island in recent months.

Appealing to members of the PKK - the Kurdistan Workers' Party - Ocalan said "all groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself".

 

There was cautious optimism from some quarters that the 40-year conflict would come to an end.

"We'll look at the outcome," said a leading member of Erdogan's ruling AKP, Efkan Ala.

 

It should be mentioned that Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK, has spent 26 years in Imrali prison. Following an operation by the National Intelligence Organization, he was taken into custody in Kenya in February 1999 and transported to Turkey. Even though he was given a death sentence, it was eventually reduced to life in prison.

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