Abdullah Ocalan, the 75-year-old imprisoned founding member of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), on February 27 sought to bring an end to the insurgent organisation’s four-decade-long bloody conflict with Turkey by calling on the political-militant group to disarm and dissolve itself.

“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Ocalan, a prisoner held by Turkey since 1999, was quoted as saying by allies who read out his message in Istanbul. “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”

“Convene your congress and make a decision,” he added.

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan goes on to accept that the PKK, designated by Turkey and Western allies as terrorist, have laid down arms, it might clear the way for him to tolerate semi-autonomous Kurdish control of northeastern post-Assad Syria, providing Ankara with a new security and stability amid which it can proceed in earnest as the main partner in the Syrian post-war reconstruction.

However, there are signs that some of the different factions within the PKK might not respond positively to Ocalan’s call. 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?”

In the first response from Erdogan’s ruling party AKP, deputy chairman of the party Efkan Ala said his country would be “free of its shackles” if the PKK lays down arms and dissolves.

The government, he added, expected the PKK to comply with Ocalan’s call.

Galip Dalay, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera that, if successful, the move to end the conflict would be one of the “most transformative events that have happened in the Middle East”.

It could “redefine the course of Turkish politics” and also “redefine Turkiye’s relationship with the region’s Kurds in the main neighbouring states,” Dalay said.

The conflict between the PKK and Turkey has cost at least 40,000 lives, most of whom were Kurdish civilians.

According to Berkay Mandiraci, of the International Crisis Group, as cited by the Guardian, the PKK, which is pursued by Turkish airstrike and other forces across Turkey, Syria and Iraq, appears “weakened” after a decade of intensive fighting.

“Turkish officials now appear to assess it is a good time to end the 40-year conflict with the PKK through a mix of military force and political manoeuvring,” he was reported as saying, noting the regional shifts across the Middle East. Turkey is preparing to play a major role in the new Syria and the wider region, he said, thus Turkish officials want to eliminate any potential obstacles.

Anticipation that a “letter” from Ocalan—jailed for life after being seized by Turkish intelligence in Nairobi 26 years ago—would be released has built up for many weeks, but in the meantime, the Erdogan government has continued with a fresh purge of pro-Kurdish mayors who won the leadership of various municipalities in the 2024 local elections, replacing them with interior ministry-appointed trustees.

Those mayors are members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) party and in the moments after Ocalan’s call for a laying down of arms, DEM lawmaker Sirri Sureyya Onder was upbeat about the weight the PKK founder’s message would carry, saying: “This is the breaking point of history and it is a positive one. We are here with a compass to find a possible route out of these dark chaotic days.”

Securing the peace process would nevertheless require “the recognition of democratic politics” and legal backing for a sustained peace, he added.

The PKK, headquartered in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq, was founded in November 1978. Its full-scale insurgency began in August 1984, when the group announced a Kurdish uprising. 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.

A ceasefire between the PKK and Turkey collapsed in 2015.

Turkey regards the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who aligned with the US in the successful fight to bring down the self-declared Islamic State (ISIS) caliphate that was established in parts of Syria and Iraq, as indistinguishable from the PKK. The group’s fighters are largely drawn from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The SDF is in talks with the new authority that took power in Damascus after the December toppling of former president Bashar al-Assad on the format of the control that will prevail over northeastern Syria as well as the SDF’s possible future role in a nationwide Syrian military force.

If SDF commander Mazloum Abdi can filter YPG members from his group, the SDF could more easily integrate into the security structure newly forming in Syria after 13 years of civil war, Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, was reported as saying by Reuters.

"The YPG will likely heed Ocalan if he asks them to play nice with Turkey, even if some leaders in Qandil [the PKK headquarters in Iraq] advise the group to do otherwise," he said.

Following Ocalan’s call, Bloomberg reported Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of consulting firm Teneo, as saying: “The current efforts fall short of providing a full resolution to the social and political dimensions of Turkey’s Kurdish issue, functioning primarily as a disarmament plan designed to halt PKK violence.

“Whether bringing an end to the PKK’s four-decade armed conflict with the Turkish state will facilitate broader democratization and a comprehensive settlement of the Kurdish question remains unclear.”

Ocalan’s statement, in the form of a letter, was one and a half pages long.

In the letter, looking at how the PKK’s insurgency started, he observed that armed struggle against the Turkish state was once required due to policies that denied Kurdish identity and restricted Kurdish rights and freedoms.

"The PKK was born in the 20th century, in the most violent epoch of the history of humanity, amidst the two world wars, under the shadow of the experience of real socialism and the cold war around the world," he said.

"The outright denial of Kurdish reality, restrictions on basic rights and freedoms – especially freedom of expression – played a significant role in its emergence and development."

He concluded that because of democratic steps taken by the Turkish government on Kurdish issues, and given regional developments, the armed resistance no longer held any meaning.

The statement was broadcast live on big screens in the eastern cities of Van and Diyarbakir.