After four decades of armed struggle against Türkiye… The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) officially announces its dissolution and disarmament

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced on Monday its dissolution, ending more than four decades of armed struggle against the Turkish Republic, the Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK, reported.

“The 12th Congress of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) decided to dissolve the PKK’s organizational structure and end its armed struggle,” the party said in a statement after holding its conference last week.

The announcement comes in response to a call issued by the party’s founder, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on İmralı Island off Istanbul since 1999.

Öcalan urged his fighters in February to disarm and dissolve the party.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whose leadership is entrenched in the mountains of northern Iraq, responded positively on March 1 to its historic leader’s call to end forty years of fighting against the Ankara authorities.

That day, the party, which Ankara and its Western allies classify as a “terrorist organization,” declared a ceasefire with immediate effect.

In a speech on Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hinted that news of the party’s dissolution could come at any moment, emphasizing his government’s determination to “save our country from the scourge of terrorism”.

“We’re making steady progress towards the goal of making Türkiye free of terrorism,” he said.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was founded in 1978 and is considered a “terrorist” organization by Türkiye, the United States, and the European Union.

It launched an armed rebellion against Ankara in 1984 to establish a state for Kurds, who constitute approximately 20 percent of Türkiye’s 85 million population.

Since Öcalan’s imprisonment in 1999, there have been numerous attempts to end the conflict, which has left more than 40,000 dead.

While peace efforts had been frozen for about a decade, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s camp launched an initiative presented in October by his main nationalist ally, Devlet Bahceli, through a delegation from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), to Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence.

Bahceli then called on Öcalan to renounce violence and dissolve his party in exchange for his early release.

In northern Iraq, Türkiye has been establishing military bases for 25 years to confront the party’s fighters deployed in sites and camps in the Kurdistan Region.

In turn, the spokesman for Türkiye’s ruling Justice and Development Party, Ömer Çelik, said on Monday that the PKK’s decision to dissolve itself and lay down its weapons, following a call from its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is an important step toward achieving the goal of a Türkiye free of terrorism.

This came in a post on the X, following an earlier decision by the organization to dissolve itself and lay down its weapons.

Çelik considered the decision to dissolve the PKK itself and completely surrender its weapons, leading to the closure of all its branches, extensions, and illegal structures, to be a decisive turning point.

He stressed that Turkish government institutions will closely monitor the operation on the ground and present its stages to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

At the end of last February, Öcalan called for the dissolution of all PKK-affiliated groups and an end to its activities, which have continued for more than 40 years.