From the Turkish prison where he remains incarcerated, Abdullah Öcalan has called on the PKK to lay down its arms.

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan is urging the organisation he founded in 1978 to disarm and is advocating for a resolution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey through “peace and democracy”.

Abdullah Öcalan’s message was read in an interview in Constantinople by members of the extended delegation of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy and Equality Party (DEM), who had visited him earlier on the prison island of Imrali in the Propontis, where he has been held for the past 26 years.

He notes that the call by the leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, the will of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the positive response of other political parties to this call created an environment in which he is calling for disarmament, taking historical responsibility for this appeal.

On 22 October last year, the president of the ultra-nationalist MİP and Erdoğan’s government partner, Devlet Bahçeli, submitted a proposal for Öcalan’s release from prison, under strict conditions, provided he publicly renounced the armed struggle in the National Assembly and called on PKK members to dissolve the organisation. 

Abdullah Öcalan made a similar appeal during a failed peace process a decade ago.

With information from: AMNA

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