Ocalan, 75, has been held in an island prison off Istanbul since 1999. Edited by: Louis Oelofse and Alex Berry Timothy Jones Writer, translator and editor with DW's online news team.

Istanbul — In a historic move, imprisoned Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan called Thursday on members of the banned Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) to lay down their weapons to end a ...

In the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in the southeast, where around 3,000 people had gathered at a square to listen to an audio broadcast of Ocalan's call, some broke into spontaneous ...

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was expected to make a "historic declaration" on Thursday (February 27, 2025) on ending the decades-long conflict between Kurdish groups and the Turkish State.

Ocalan’s appeal may mark a turning point in the decades-long conflict between the PKK and Turkey, a struggle that has claimed tens of thousands of lives over the past 40 years. In a ...

By Ben Hubbard Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of a Kurdish guerrilla movement that has been waging a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state for decades, has called on his fighters to ...

ISTANBUL: Jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan on Thursday called for his Kurdish fighter group to lay down its weapons and dissolve itself in a landmark declaration read out in Istanbul.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his militant group Thursday to lay down its arms and dissolve as part of a new bid to end a four-decade long conflict with ...

The group, founded by Ocalan in 1978, has led an insurgency in Turkey’s southeast since 1984. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Previous peace ...