The executive committee of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) early on March 1 declared a ceasefire with Turkey.

The move heeds a call made two days ago by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who asked the insurgent group, which has fought the Turkish state for more than 40 years, to disarm and disband.

“In order to pave the way for the implementation of leader Apo’s call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK executive committee said, referring to Ocalan in a statement reported by the pro-PKK ANF news service.

“We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee, which is based in northern Iraq, added. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked.”

The PKK also said in its communication that it stood ready to, as Ocalan requested, convene a congress to vote on dissolving the political-militant group. However, it said that “for this to happen, a suitable secure environment must be created” and Ocalan “must personally direct and lead it for the success of the congress”.

The group also demanded an improvement in Ocalan’s prison conditions, saying that he “must be able to live and work in physical freedom and be able to establish unhindered relationships with anyone he wants, including his friends”.

As observed by bne IntelliNews, the call from Ocalan is not the first time he has made bids for peace that have bee billed as historic. He made such interventions three years in a row in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Following the 2015 call, the the PKK and Turkey’s Erdogan regime became embroiled in urban warfare across Turkey’s Kurdish-majority cities.

Notably, Ocalan’s statement released on February 27 included a note from the 75-year-old PKK leader, imprisoned for life in 1999, reading: “While introducing this perspective, disarmament and the abolition of the PKK in practice, beyond doubt, requires the recognition of democratic politics and the legal aspect.”

Ahead of Ocalan’s call, there were signs that some of the different factions within the PKK might not respond positively to a statement from Ocalan asking them to lay down arms.

As reported by Rudaw, earlier this month, one PKK commander told a television channel close to his faction that much of the organisation would only take a call to disarm seriously if Ocalan, who is imprisoned on a remote island, was to make it after walking free from prison.

“This work cannot be done only through a call,” he said. “We are a movement with tens of thousands of armed people. These fighters are not on a payroll to be sacked. These are ideological fighters.” Ocalan, he added, “has to speak while free. If not, how can [PKK militants] be convinced to lay down their arms?”

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, the UK and the EU, has waged an insurgency since 1984. In the 1990s, the official platform of the PKK changed from seeking an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey to pursuing autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey. The Kurds make up around 20% of Turkey’s 85mn people.

On February 28, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Ocalan’s appeal as an “historic opportunity”. Turkey, he said, would “keep a close watch” to ensure the talks to put an end to the insurgency were “brought to a successful conclusion”.

“When the pressure of terrorism and arms is eliminated, the space for politics in democracy will naturally expand,” Erdogan said.

Iraq, like Iran home to many Kurdish people, welcomed Ocalan’s move. The announcement was “a positive and important step towards achieving stability in the region”, said Baghdad.

The bid to end the conflict between Turkey and the PKK is no doubt related to the evolving situation in Syria, where a new administration in Damascus—formed by jihadist militias endorsed by Ankara that waged an offensive that in December caused the downfall of long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad—faces challenges including the situation in northeast Syria, which remains under the control of Syrian Kurds.

Turkey intends to serve as the main ally to the administration in Damascus, while capitalising on the huge contracts that will be on offer in the massive post-war reconstruction of the country that is required. A difficulty is that as well as fighting the PKK, Turkey pursues the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who, largely drawing fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), defend the de facto autonomous Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), also known as Rojava.

Turkey makes no distinction between the PKK, SDF and YPG, arguing that they are largely one and the same and all “terrorist”.

An added complication is that SDF and YPG fighters served as the ground force in the successful US-led campaign that in 2019 brought down the self-declared Islamic State (ISIS) caliphate that was established over parts of Syria and Iraq five years previously. The SDF and YPG are still allied with Washington and are protected by US air power east of the Euphrates, though Nato member Turkey still mounts regular cross-border air strikes and other armed operations against them.

On February 28, Omer Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan’s governing party, said all groups associated with the PKK should comply with Ocalan’s call to disarm and disband.

“Regardless of whether they are called PKK, YPG or PYD, all extensions of the terrorist organisation must dissolve themselves,” Celik said, adding: “We mean the complete liquidation of the organisation and its elements in Iraq and Syria.”

Celik also said: “At the point we have reached today, we declare that it is time to achieve the goal of a terror-free Turkey.”

Analysts say the process set in motion by the ceasefire could see the non-Syrian Kurdish fighters who fight alongside Syrian Kurdish fighters in the ranks of the SDF asked to return to their home countries in the region, leaving DAANES and the SDF to negotiate an integration of the remaining fighters into a newly-formed Syrian national army. In return, Turkey would tolerate a semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northeast Syria, similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq.

This arrangement was perhaps hinted at in mid-December when Mazloum Abdi, who leads the SDF, said that Kurdish fighters who came to Syria from around the Middle East to fight for his militia would leave if Turkey agreed a total ceasefire on clashes taking place in northern Syria.

On February 27, Abdi said he welcomed Ocalan's call, saying it would have positive consequences in the region. However, he added that it only applied to the PKK and was "not related to us in Syria".

"If there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria," he said.