After Landmark Congress, PKK Confirms Decision to End Anti-Turkey Insurgency

Ankara and Erbil welcome the move, saying it will contribute to peace in the region.

A youth holds a flag with the image of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, in Istanbul, on March 21, 2018. Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

After days of uncertainty, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has confirmed its intention to lay down its arms and abandon its decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

The PKK’s 12th congress “ended the work carried out under the name of the PKK by taking decisions to dissolve its organizational structure and abandon the method of armed struggle,” the group said in a May 12 statement carried by the PKK-linked Firat news agency.