Abdullah Obalan, founder and leader of the Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK), issued a statement from prison By calling the group to melt and lay his hands in the fight against the Turkish state.
The group, which Turkiye, the United States and the European Union marked the “terrorist” group, fought against the armed rebellion against Turkiya since 1984, in which more than 40,000 people were killed.
The peace process collapsed about ten years ago, and the group has since performed attacks in Turkiye, while the Turkish army performed operations on the southeast of the country and across the border in Syria and Iraq.
But the chances of approaching have increased in the last few months, after Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Party of the Movement (MHP) and the Allies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, publicly urged the father -in -law to complete the PKK rebellion replacement for his release.
What did the father say?
PKK leader invited the group to do two things that would effectively end the decade with Turkiya: to lay his hands and melt.
In a statement read on his behalf by Politicians from the Prokurd Dem party, the father -in -law said that PKK was formed in response to the Turkish state that had limited the Kurdish rights, but that freedom had increased since then and that PKK “reached the end of its life, making its dissolution.”
Framing the PKK as a product of the Cold War, the father’s statement continued: “PKK was born in the 20th century, in the most infrequent epoch of human history, in the midst of two world wars, under the shadow of the experience of real socialism and the Cold War around the world.”
The father’s statement in itself is not a formal dissolution of PKK – in his comments, he referred to a “congress” that should be convened to make a decision. However, he is a fierce in the most influential voice within PKK, and the group follows a political theory formulated by a closed leader.
The video of the father’s statement was aired on the large screens across the southeastern Turkiya, the traditional heart of Kurdish people in the country, in the importance of his words.
What was the answer from Turkiya?
The Turkish response has been positive so far, descending from the back of a continuous effort to convince Deader to take calls to peace.
Speaking immediately after the statement was read, Efkan Ala, Deputy President of the Ruling Party for Justice and Development (AK Party), said: “If the terrorist organization assesses this invitation, lay its weapons, it will dissolve, release Turkiye from its shackles.”
But Ala added that Turkiye expects PKK to be in accordance with the father -in -law’s call, and the sources told Daily Sabah that PKK “would bear the consequences of” if he “would not send a father’s call”.
What is PKK and who is fatherly?
The father, who is in his 70s, is the leader of the founder and the ideological character of PKK. Was captured by Turkish special forces in 1999 and Closed on an island near Istanbulmaintaining a lifelong penalty in solitary confinement.
In the respect of many Kurdish fighters and activists as a visionary, the father-in-law has shaped the evolution of PKK from the Marxist-Leninist rebel group into a wider movement that has advocated a democratic conferalism-formulated democracy that perceives democracy in the community outside the nation-state.
The PKK was founded in the 1970s with Marxist-Leninist and Kurdish nationalist ideology, and the armed conflict against the Turkish state in 1984 began.
Father and PKK remain influential in the region, and the father’s writings continue to design the Kurdish political thought.
This latest initiative, if it is successful, could prove to be one of the “most sexual events that occurred in the Middle East,” Galip Dalay of Chatham House told Al Jazeera.
Does that mean the end of the conflict between PKK and Turkiya?
The father -in -law’s words have a great weight among PKK and his supporters, and to ignore them, they would pass on the risks for the military leadership of PKK, probably made them responsible for any escalation in the conflict.
But although the fatherly remains a valued figure, the leadership of PKK is not monolithic. With their leader in prison for decades, rival fractures and separation groups appeared, such as the Kurdistan (KCK) Association, which may not easily accept his invitation to disarmament.
However, the nature of the Turkish government statement in the last few months is clear that there is an incentive to end the conflict that has sought thousands of lives.
PKK and his branches have made numerous attacks in Turkiya, some of which killed civilians. Recently, in October, an attack claimed by PKK five people killed at the headquarters of the Turkish Air Force Industry (Tusas) near Ankara.
Turkiye’s military forces performed operations against PKKs of his branches in southeastern Turkiye, Syria and Iraq, and some of his actions criticized human rights organizations.
Will this have an impact on the wider region?
PKK has branches and Allied groups in areas with the Kurdish population across Syria, Iraq and Iran.
In Syria, the National Protection Unit (YPG), which Turkiye says is the local wing of PKK, forms the largest part of Syrian democratic forces (SDF) supported by the United States. SDF controls northeast Syria and Turkiye Several military operations against the group in an attempt to push it off the Turkish-Syrian border.
PKK has bases in Northern Iraq, in areas operating a semi -Autonic regional government of Kurdistan. Turkiye has repeatedly bombed these locations and has its own base in northern Iraq, which caused tension with the Iraqi government.
The end of the conflict, therefore, would potentially lead to better regional relations -although in the first comments of the group from the father -in -law, the head of the SDF, Mazlouum Abdi, said that it did not apply to Syria, even while greeted the call of the PKK leader.
