Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan has issued a long-awaited cease-fire declaration that would be a major step towards ending a 30-year conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives in Turkey.
The ceasefire announced on Thursday, which coincides with the Kurdish New Year, or Newroz, also calls for the withdrawal of PKK likely to bases in northern Iraq.
In Ocalan’s letter read out by members of parliament, Pervin Buldan, in Kurdish, and Sirri Sureyya Onder, in Turkish, he said: “In the presence of millions of witnesses, I’m telling you, let a new process begin. No to weapons, yes to politics.
“We’re in such a phase that our armed forces should withdraw from the country. This is not an end, this is a beginning. Beginning of a new politics… A new era is starting. This is a political era.”
“The declaration took place in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir where hundreds of thousands gathered for celebrations.
It caps months of clandestine peace talks between Turkey’s spy agency and the state’s former public enemy number one Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence for treason and separatism on Imrali island off Istanbul since 1999.
Commenting on Ocalan’s remarks, Interior Minister Muammer Guler said, “The language (in the statement) is the language of peace. We should see the practice.”
He also reminded that it was illegal to carry Ocalan posters according to Turkish law.
Many of the Hundreds of thousands of people, who attended the Newroz celebration event in Diyarbakir, carried posters and banners of the imprisoned PKK leader.
“Judiciary authorities will do their job on the issue,” he said.
Constitutional recognition
Ocalan’s ceasefire is likely to be in return for wider constitutional recognition and language rights for Turkey’s up to 15 million Kurds.
The peace plan is the result of written consultations between Ocalan, pro-Kurdish legislators and PKK bodies in Europe and northern Iraq, under the close monitoring of Turkish agents.
Kurdish legislators say Ocalan might ask for commissions to be established to properly monitor the ceasefire, and call for safe passage for fighters wishing to leave Turkey.
Erdogan has already pledged that no militant would be “touched if they leave the land”.
But the rekindled peace process has not been without controversy.
Nationalist opposition leader Devlet Bahceli has accused Erdogan of “treason” and “selling out the country to a bunch of bloody bandits”.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ocalan both appear to have staked their political futures on the renewed push to end the 29-year armed campaign for self-rule that has killed about 40,000 people, mostly Kurds.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Diyarbakir, said Erdogan has made no secret that he was eyeing the presidency.
“He will need to amend the constitution and would like to increase the powers of the president. He can not do that without the support of the Kurdish party, the BDP,” she added.
Erdogan said he was putting his faith in the peace process “even if it costs me my political career”, in the face of accusations that Ankara was making concessions to Ocalan — routinely labelled a “terrorist chief” and “baby-killer” by Turks.
Ocalan — known as “Apo” — has said he wants peace for the greater good of his people.
“Consider Apo dead if this process fails. I am simply out,” the burly 64-year-old was quoted as saying in a rare prison meeting with Kurdish lawmakers last month.
