Long-Jailed PKK Leader Says ‘Armed Struggle’ Against Turkey Has Ended

PKK fighters will start handing over their arms this week in northern Iraq’s city of Sulaymaniyah, according to reports in both Turkish and Kurdish media.

A member of the PKK's youth wing sifts through a weapons cache in the city of Nusaybin, Turkey, on March 1, 2016. Cagdas Erdogan/Getty Images

Abdullah Ocalan, the long-imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has formally announced the end of his group’s decades-long terrorist campaign against the Turkish state and called for a full transition to democratic politics.

“The phase of armed struggle has ended,” Ocalan, who has been held by the Turkish authorities for the past 25 years, said in a video message.