a dissolution and many questions – Liberation

Expected for days, negotiated for weeks, Abdullah Ocalan's statement proved to be even more powerful than expected on Thursday afternoon. The founder and historic leader of the Kurdistan workers' party (PKK) did not just ask his fighters to lay down arms after four decades of guerrilla warfare. He ordered the dissolution of his armed movement by affirming « Assum the historical responsibility of this call ».

The 75-year-old Kurdish leader's message, imprisoned for twenty-six years in Turkey, was read in front of the cameras by DEM deputies, the pro-Kurdish party in the Turkish parliament, who visited him for three hours in his prison on the island of Imrali, off Istanbul. Faced with a large photo showing the historic chief of the PKK, bleached hair, a white leaf in hand, the text read in Turkish and Kurdish has raised jubilation movements in Turkey and the region.

Indeed, this call could not only end decades of violence between PKK and Turkish forces, which left 40,000 dead in Turkey, but would have implications in Syria and Iraq with movements and executive fighters or affiliated to PKK in the two countries. The process started in Türkiye for several months by the political forces, in particular the nationalist party MHP, ally of the government, to initiate dialogue with Ocalan, leads when the Syrian Kurds are in the midst of negotiations with the news