ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group declared a “formal and clear ceasefire” with Turkey yesterday after the rebels’ jailed leader this week ordered a halt to the decades-long armed campaign for autonomy.
“Since March 21 and from now on, we as a movement, as the PKK … officially and clearly declare a ceasefire,” said Murat Karayilan, the PKK’s field commander, in a video message apparently taped at a rebel holdout in northern Iraq.
His comments were translated from Kurdish in the video posted on Firat News, a website with links to the militants.
Abdullah Ocalan, held in an island prison since his 1999 conviction for treason, called on the PKK to cease fire and withdraw from Turkey in a letter read to hundreds of thousands of supporters in the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir on March 21, the Kurds’ traditional new year holiday.
Ocalan, called Apo for short, has been in negotiations with state officials from his prison cell since October to end the conflict that has claimed 40,000 lives since it began in 1984.
“The decision by our leader Apo is all of ours. We accept this decision, we agree with it,” Karayilan said in the video, flanked by female and male fighters dressed in baggy green fatigues. “We see it as historic, correct and very important and as the start of a new period.”
Karayilan said his rebels would complete a withdrawal if the government and parliament “fulfilled their responsibilities and created the foundation for a withdrawal,” without elaborating further.
