TÜRKİYE ORTA ASYA HABER KKUORDİNATÖRÜ

US President encourages Turkey and Kurds The US is behind this Kurdish group PKK declares ceasefire with Turkey March 2, 2025 Share Getty Images A group of people, some holding yellow flags with images of PKK founder Abdullah ÖcalanGetty Images Syrian Kurds gathered this week to hear a message from jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan The outlawed Kurdish group PKK has declared a ceasefire with Turkey after its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan called on the movement to lay down its arms and disperse. In a statement on Saturday, the PKK said it hoped Türkiye would release Öcalan, who has been held in solitary confinement since 1999, and lead a disarmament process. This follows its call this week to end four decades of armed conflict in southeastern Türkiye, where tens of thousands of people have been killed. His announcement comes months after Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Türkiye’s ultranationalist MHP party and an ally of the Turkish government, launched a bid to end the conflict. The PKK — which stands for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — has waged an insurgency since 1984, initially aiming to create an independent homeland for Kurds, who make up about 20% of Türkiye’s 85 million population. The group has since moved away from its separatist goals and now pushes for greater autonomy and Kurdish rights. It is banned as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, Britain and the US. Who are the Kurds? Öcalan, affectionately known as Apo by Kurdish nationalists, met with lawmakers from a pro-Kurdish party on İmralı, an island in the Sea of ​​Marmara southwest of Istanbul, this week, where he is imprisoned. "We are declaring a ceasefire as of today to pave the way for the implementation of Leader Apo's call for peace and a democratic society," the PKK executive board said in a statement on Saturday, according to the pro-PKK ANF news agency. "None of our forces will take armed action unless they are attacked," it added. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said later on Saturday that military operations against the PKK would resume if "the promises made by [the group] are not kept" and the disarmament process is disrupted. The PKK added that Öcalan's prison conditions should be eased, and that he should be able to "live and work in physical freedom and establish unhindered relationships with anyone he wants, including his friends." Öcalan, who called for disarmament, addressed PKK members in a letter read in both Kurdish and Turkish by Democrat Party members Ahmet Türk and Pervin Buldan. “All groups should lay down their arms and the PKK should dissolve itself,” he said, adding that his movement was primarily formed because “the channels of democratic politics are closed.” But Bahçeli, backed by positive signals from Erdoğan and other political parties, had created the right environment for the PKK to lay down its arms, Öcalan added. Kurdish leaders have largely welcomed the development. According to local reports, thousands of people gathered in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern cities of Diyarbakır and Van to watch the statement on large screens. Holding a white sheet of paper in front of him, Abdullah Öcalan of the Democratic Party sits in the middle of a group of pro-Kurdish MPs at a table covered with a white tablecloth. Dem Party Abdullah Öcalan (C) met with a group of pro-Kurdish MPs on the prison island of İmralı this week. However, there are significant questions in both Kurdish and Turkish public opinion about what the next steps might be, and not everyone is convinced that anything will change. Last week, senior PKK commander Duran Kalkan said Türkiye’s ruling AKP party does not seek a solution but “to seize, destroy and annihilate.” Turkish-backed forces in northeastern Syria have intensified their campaign against Kurdish forces and last month called on Syria’s new leaders to eliminate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Pro-Kurdish politicians have been targeted in Türkiye in recent years with a wave of arrests and imprisonments. Nearly 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK’s insurgency began. Southeastern Türkiye saw a surge in violence from 2015 to 2017, when a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire broke down. More recently, the PKK claimed responsibility for an attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) headquarters near Ankara in October that killed five people. Türkiye Kurds