Iran welcomes PKK dissolution as ‘important step’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday welcomed the dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), calling it “an important step towards rejecting violence and strengthening security.”
“We hope that the completion of this process will lead to the promotion of stability and peace in Turkey and the region,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement.
The PKK, founded in the late 1970s by Abdullah Ocalan, on Monday announced its dissolution and the end of its four-decade armed struggle against Turkey, which has killed more than 40,000 people.
“The PKK 12th Congress decided to dissolve the PKK’s organizational structure... and end the armed struggle,” Firat news agency reported it as saying in the closing declaration of a congress held last week in northern Iraq, where the group is based.
Kurds make up some 20% of Turkey’s 86 million population.
The PKK held the congress in response to a February call to disband from its jailed leader Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999.
The PKK’s decision could boost NATO member Turkey’s political and economic stability and encourage moves to ease tensions in neighboring Iraq and also in Syria, where Kurdish forces are allied with US forces.
Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), a PKK offshoot founded in 2004, has been also involved in operations against Iran over the past two decades.
The group is labelled a terrorist organization by Iran, Turkey and the US.
The decision was welcomed by many countries in the world as well as the European Union and the United Nations.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the PKK move, calling it an “important decision for maintaining peace and fraternity” in the country.