The jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has called on the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) to disarm, in a letter read out by his political allies in an Istanbul conference room on Thursday. The statement attributed to Öcalan and read out by members of the pro-Kurdish DEM party said due to improvements in freedom of expression in Turkey and Kurdish cultural rights the PKK had lost meaning and become redundant. ‘I call for laying down arms and assume the historic responsibility of this call,’ the letter said.
The PKK has been fighting the Turkish state for more than 40 years and initially sought an independent Kurdistan before shifting to a demand for greater autonomy in Turkey. The group is considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara and Turkey’s western allies
