Turkey’s jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down its arms on Thursday, February 27, Reuters reports.
A delegation of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party visited Ocalan on Thursday in his island prison and later delivered his statement in nearby Istanbul.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” Ocalan said in a letter made public by DEM party members.
Ocalan wants his party to hold a congress and to formally agree to dissolve itself, they quoted him as saying.
The PKK is deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
