Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan said yesterday his militant group’s three-decade insurgency against the Turkish State had become “unsustainable” but stopped short of declaring an immediate end to its armed struggle.
In a message relayed by Kurdish politicians to tens of thousands gathered in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) urged his militant group to hold a congress on laying down its weapons.
“This struggle of our 40-year-old movement, which has been filled with pain, has not gone to waste but at the same time has become unsustainable,” Ocalan said in the message, read out at a rally to mark the Kurdish “Newroz” New Year celebrations.
President Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, launched talks with Ocalan in late 2012 to end an insurgency that has killed 40,000 people, ravaged the region’s economy and tarnished Turkey’s image abroad. Progress has been faltering since then, but Kurdish faith in Ocalan remains undiminished.
“History and our people are demanding from us a democratic solution and peace in line with the spirit of the age,” he said, calling for the congress to determine the PKK’s “political and social strategy in harmony with the spirit of the new period”.
Erdogan, who triggered anger last weekend by suggesting there was no “Kurdish problem” in Turkey, said in a speech hundreds of kilometres away in the southwestern city of Denizli that he hoped yesterday would mark a turning point.
“Let it be a cornerstone that truly combines love ... not a Newroz like those of the past, when everywhere was burned and destroyed by Molotov cocktails, stones and fireworks,” he said.
Young men in green guerrilla outfits and women in brightly coloured dresses danced as patriotic Kurdish songs played. Organisers claimed a million people attended, but there were no official figures.