Kurdish militant group disbanding, ending struggle

THE Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) yesterday announced its dissolution, saying it was ending its armed struggle against the Turkish state and drawing a line under its bloody four-decade insurgency.

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Founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK carried out attacks aimed at defending Kurdish autonomy in Tiirkiye that cost more than 40 000 lives.

“The 12th PKK Congress has decided to dissolve the PKK’s organisational structure and end its method of armed _ struggle,” the group said in a statement.

The move was welcomed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party as an “important step’, saying the implementation of the process would be “meticulously monitored” by the government.