By Daren Butler
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to disarm and disband on Thursday, 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 leadership heeds its founder’s call to lay down its arms, which is not guaranteed, President Tayyip Erdogan would gain a historic opportunity to pacify and develop southeastern Turkey, where violence has killed thousands of people and devastated the regional economy.
Meanwhile, Ocalan himself, now 75, could see his dream of peace during his life time realised after having been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul in near-total isolation since 1999.
In neighbouring Syria, the new administration could assert greater control over its Kurdish north as it seeks to rebuild a nation fractured by civil war, while peace would also remove a constant flashpoint in Kurdish-run, oil-rich northern Iraq, where the PKK set up its base two decades ago.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” Ocalan said in a letter made public by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party members.
Ocalan wants his party to hold a congress and to formally agree to dissolve itself, they quoted him as saying.
A DEM delegation visited Ocalan on Thursday in the prison on Imrali island and later delivered his message in nearby Istanbul, a photo of them together with Ocalan projected onto the wall behind them.
There was no immediate response from the PKK headquarters in the mountains of northern Iraq, while Kurdish-led forces in Syria said Ocalan’s message was “positive”.
In the first reaction to Ocalan’s appeal from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, its deputy chairman Efkan Ala said Turkey would be “free of its shackles” if the PKK truly laid down its arms.
The group is deemed a terrorist organisation by Turkey and its Western allies.
KURDISH RIGHTS
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.
Devlet Bahceli, a Turkish ultra-nationalist leader and close political ally of Erdogan, proposed in October that Ocalan order his fighters to end their armed struggle – a decade after a previous Turkey-PKK peace process collapsed. Bahceli suggested that Ocalan might be released if he made such a call.
In his message on Thursday, Ocalan said the armed struggle had “run its course”, though he also urged Turkey to show respect for ethnic minorities, freedom of expression and the right to democratic self-organisation.
The pro-Kurdish political movement, the target of a years-long judicial crackdown, will hope Ocalan’s move helps usher in democratic reforms and cultural and language rights in Turkey.
For Ankara, a peace deal would relieve a burden on its security forces, ease social tensions and boost the mainly Kurdish southeast’s under-developed economy. It would also be a major coup for Erdogan, who has taken some steps during his two decades in power to resolve the issue.
The PKK insurgency largely centered on the southeast but also involved deadly attacks in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. Most of those killed in the conflict were PKK militants.
SYRIA FALLOUT
Some analysts said growing regional instability had prompted the government’s abrupt turnaround on Ocalan. It allowed the opposition DEM Party to meet him first in late December, shortly after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad.
Erdogan has said he believes “ultimately brotherhood, unity, togetherness and peace will win”. But if this path is blocked, he said: “We will not hesitate to use the iron fist of our state wrapped in a velvet glove.”
The precarious situation of Kurdish forces in Syria, where Islamist rebels ousted Assad after 13 years of civil war, as well as uncertainty about Turkey’s intentions have left many Kurds anxious about the way ahead.
While Erdogan has voiced support for Bahceli’s initiative, Turkish military action against the PKK in Iraq and what it regards as its affiliate in northern Syria, the YPG, has continued unabated.
The United States deems the PKK terrorists but it has been allied with the YPG’s umbrella group in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. However, there is uncertainty over how long this may continue under President Donald Trump, and with an Ankara-friendly administration in Damascus.
Mazloum Abdi, the commander of Syrian Kurdish-led forces, said Ocalan’s call applied only to the PKK and was “not related to us in Syria”. After Assad’s fall, he had said fighters who came to Syria from elsewhere to support Kurdish forces would leave if a deal were reached with Turkey.
While Ocalan is still revered by the pro-Kurdish political movement, it is unclear how much influence he retains over the PKK fighters.
In a statement to mark the anniversary of Ocalan’s capture in 1999, the PKK said: “Leader Apo will start a new process, a process of change, transformation and reconstruction for everyone,” using its nickname for Ocalan.
“Leader Apo and the Kurds will not divide Turkey, but will work for the democratisation of Turkey on the basis of Kurdish freedom.”
(Reporting by Daren Butler; Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Gareth Jones)
