PKK Lays Down Arms in Türkiye: What Now?

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Turkish state for more than forty years, announced its self-dissolution on Monday, May 12.

The bloody guerrilla war he unleashed by taking up arms in 1984 left more than 40,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, recalls the British daily The Guardian .

But what is the PKK? And what will its dissolution change for the Kurds of Türkiye?

Following the announcement of the dissolution of the movement, considered "terrorist" by Turkey, the United States and the European Union have their eyes fixed on Ankara, the country's capital.

It is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who holds the keys to definitively ending the conflict and meeting the expectations of the Kurdish people.

According to Al-Monitor , a news website founded by Syrian-American businessman Jamal Daniel, Turkey is considering “a battery of legal and technical measures to ensure the full implementation [of the PKK's commitments] and put an end to a four-decade insurgency.”

Erdogan is particularly expected on the issue of political prisoners.

“There are nearly 10,000 political prisoners in the country… For the peace process to have any chance of happening, they must be released.

as soon as possible.”

Tulay Hatimogullari, co-chair of the left-wing DEM party, in Al-Monitor

Erdogan is cautious after the PKK's announcement and is "following their implementation with the utmost attention," Al-Monitor reported. "All that matters is that commitments are respected," the Turkish president responded on May 14.

While many uncertainties remain regarding the outcome of the conflict and the future of the country's Kurds, Duran Kalkan, the current leader of the PKK, has expressed his hope that the movement's founder, Abdullah Öcalan, will be released. He has been imprisoned since 1999.