PKK leader calls for group to disband

Assyrians in Iraq have been caught in the middle of the Turkey-PKK conflict for decades.

Yasmeen Altaji | Feb. 27, 2025

The imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan has called for the group to lay down arms and disband. The move, if heeded, would end more than four decades of conflict with Turkey. 

The statement was relayed via a letter read by lawmakers from the DEM Party, Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish group. 

Ocalan was quoted as saying: “As in the case with any modern community and party whose existence has not been abolished by force, would voluntarily do, convene your congress and make a decision; all groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”

Turkey has engaged in years-long cross-border operations targeting suspected PKK positions in Iraq and Syria. Attacks have repeatedly struck and extensively damaged various Assyrian villages in remote areas of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

It remains unclear whether all factions within the organisation will heed the call. 

This is a developing story.