Kurdish Leader Abdullah Ocalan Calls for End to Insurgency

The leader of a violent, Kurdish nationalist movement has called for the end to their armed struggle.

The BBC reports that Abdullah Ocalan issued the statement via Kurdish politicians from his island prison cell off the coast of the Turkish capital of Istanbul. His words were read at Kurdish rallies throughout Turkey that were held to celebrate the nowruz, which is the Kurdish New Year.

In the announcement, he called for the creation of a deliberative body whose primary purpose will be the debate of permanently laying down arms.

Ocalan is the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which for more than 30 years has waged a violent terrorist campaign against the Turkish state in an attempt to create an independent Kurdish state in Turkey's southeastern region which abuts Kurdish areas of Iraq.

The PKK and Turkish government reached a ceasefire in 2013, but the recent announcement by Ocalan means a permanent peace may be at hand. The fighting between the Kurds and Turkish security forces has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

Ocalan's announcement is a bit of a surprise given that tensions between the Turkish government and the Kurds have increased recently. A major source of tension was Turkey's refusal to help Kurds fighting the Islamic State in the town of Kobane, which is directly across the Turkish border in Syria. Only after deadly protests in Kurdish majority cities did the Turkish government grant Kurdish fighters permission to cross into Turkey from Iraq and Syria so they could reinforce Kurdish forces in Kobane.

With Iraqi Kurds essentially in control of their own de facto state, it also seemed unlikely that the Turkish government would give in to Kurdish demands for fear that Turkey's Kurds would be inspired to continue fighting with the ultimate goal of joining up with Iraq's Kurdish population.