The Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) has announced its dissolution and the end of its armed struggle against the Turkish state. The announcement followed a party congress held from May 5th to 7th in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq.

The PKK, classified by Turkey as a terrorist group, has engaged in armed clashes with Turkish forces for over 40 years. Clashes peaked in the 1990s, with major flare-ups also occurring in 2015-2016. The announcement of the group’s dissolution follows a late February call by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan urging the group’s disarmament.

Öcalan has been imprisoned for 26 years at İmralı Prison, located on an isolated island in Turkey’s Sea of Marmara. Following a years-long manhunt including stints in Syria and several European countries, Öcalan was captured by Turkish intelligence officials in Nairobi, Kenya in February 1999.

The armed group announced that details of its dissolution would be released in the near future.

The PKK’s Monday announcement also included the news that two of the organization’s high-ranking commanders, Fuat-Ali Haydar Kaytan and Riza Altun, had been killed in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

A reboot of the Kurdish peace process began in October 2024 with an announcement from Devlet Bahçeli in Turkish Parliament. Bahçeli, chairman of the ultranationalist National Action Party (MHP), serves as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s primary coalition partner.

Bahçeli’s announcement shocked many given the MHP leader’s longstanding hostility........

© Medyascope