The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.

The PKK — an acronym for its Kurdish name, Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan — is officially founded in the village of Fis, in Turkey’s mainly-Kurdish province of Diyarbakir by Abdullah Ocalan and ...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hailed the disarmament of militant Kurdish separatists as the end of a “painful chapter” in Turkey’s history.

In May of this year, its main leaders agreed to disband and disarm, putting an end to its war campaign after a public appeal by its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been under arrest for several years ...

Supporters of The Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) hold pictures of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, and shout slogans next to a bonfire during a rally for ...

Who is Ocalan? Abdullah Ocalan, who as a student of political science in Ankara became deeply involved in leftist movements, formed the PKK in 1978 as a Marxist organization.