WASHINGTON DC – Turkey, the United States and the European Union welcomed a ceasefire declared by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), saying the militants’ decades-old war against Ankara had already claimed too many lives and must stop.
The call to lay down arms was made Thursday by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, whose message was read out to an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir for the Kurdish New Year celebrations.
Ocalan made three key points in his message. He said that: Weapons should be made silent; armed PKK units should be withdrawn outside Turkey, to the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan; and disarmament did not mark the end of the struggle, but the beginning of a new phase.
“We are moving from armed resistance to an era of democratic, political struggle,” the 64-year-old rebel leader said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed Ocalan’s call, calling it “ positive development.
“There are groups who make a living from terror in Turkey. This is a process which would end the game of such groups," the official Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying reported.
The PKK has waged an armed struggle against Turkey for autonomy and greater Kurdish rights for three decades, costing more than 40,000 lives.
US State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, said the violence must end.
“This violence has claimed too many lives and too many futures, and must end,” she said in a written statement. “We applaud the courageous efforts of the government of Turkey and all parties concerned to achieve a peaceful resolution that will advance democracy in Turkey and improve the lives of all of Turkey’s citizens,” she said.
The EU said it looked forward to concrete steps.
“This is a further important step forward in the ongoing process aimed at ending a conflict which has claimed far too many victims,” an EU statement said. “We look forward to concrete follow-up and implementation,” it added.
