Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), urged the group to dissolve and cease violence in a statement from prison. This call for peace, made ten years after negotiations with Turkey lapsed, emphasizes addressing Kurdish rights and freedoms as essential to ending the conflict that has claimed around 40,000 lives since the 1980s. Kurdish lawmakers presented his message during a news conference, but uncertainty looms regarding whether PKK militants will heed this appeal, particularly given ongoing military engagements involving the organization in Iraq and Syria.
"The outright denial of Kurdish reality, restrictions on basic rights and freedoms - especially freedom of expression - played a significant role" in the PKK's "emergence and development."
Ocalan's statement called on the PKK to "convene your congress and make a decision; all groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself" - a sweeping appeal that went further than calls for ceasefires issued in the past.
His appeal, under the heading 'Call for Peace and Democratic Society,' came a decade after the last negotiations between Turkey and the PKK broke down, raising the prospect of an end to a conflict that since the 1980s has killed an estimated 40,000 people.
Questions remained, including whether Ocalan's appeal would be heeded by the PKK's militant cadres based in the mountains of northern Iraq.
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