فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
Ankara – Many Kurds view Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who has been incarcerated for 26 years and whose organization declared its dissolution and disarmament on Monday, as the “embodiment” of their cause in Turkey.
In a historic announcement on February 27th, Öcalan, now 76 years old and held in solitary confinement since 1999 on İmralı Island off Istanbul, called on his party, which Ankara and its Western allies classify as a “terrorist” organization, to lay down arms and disband. This marked a pivotal step towards ending a four-decade-long armed conflict with Turkey. This was the third ceasefire call made by the Kurdish leader, following two unsuccessful attempts in the early 2000s and in 2013.
The announcement was read out by a delegation of lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) who visited Öcalan in prison. It stated: “All armed groups must lay down their arms, and the PKK must dissolve itself.”
While peace efforts have been frozen for nearly a decade, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s camp launched an initiative that his main nationalist ally, Devlet Bahçeli, proposed to the life-sentenced Öcalan in October. Bahçeli called on Öcalan to renounce violence and dissolve his party in exchange for early release.
Last autumn, Öcalan sent a message to the public through his family, stating that he was the only one capable of moving the Kurdish issue “from the arena of conflict and violence to law and politics.”
Öcalan launched an armed insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the aim of establishing a state for the Kurds, who constitute about 20 percent of Turkey’s 85 million population. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Öcalan’s presence remains strong among Kurds in Europe, where Kurdish refugees regularly wave flags and banners bearing his image.
Born on April 4, 1949, in the village of Ömerli in southeastern Turkey, Öcalan was one of six siblings in a mixed Turkish-Kurdish peasant family. His mother tongue is Turkish. He became a left-wing activist while studying political science at university in Ankara and was first imprisoned in 1972. He founded the PKK six years later and spent years in hiding between Syria and Lebanon, with his party initiating armed struggle in 1984, which he led from his refuge in Syria, causing tension between Damascus and Ankara.
Forced to leave Syria in 1998, he moved to Russia, then Italy, and then Greece in search of refuge, but ended up at the Greek consulate in Kenya, where American agents learned of his presence and informed Turkey. He was arrested on February 15, 1999, in an operation by Turkish security forces and taken to Turkey, where he was tried and sentenced to death. Although he escaped execution when Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004, he remained in isolation in a cell on İmralı Island prison in the Sea of Marmara south of Istanbul.
Many Kurds see him as a hero and call him “Apo” (uncle), but Turks often refer to him as “Bebek Katili” (child killer), particularly in connection with bombings of civilian targets.
The Kurds did not obtain a state when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I and are today considered the largest stateless nation in the world. They are the largest minority in Turkey and are spread across several countries in the region, particularly Iraq, Syria, and Iran, where they are represented by political parties and traditional leaders, many of whom are not affiliated with the PKK.
With Öcalan’s arrest, Ankara believed it had decapitated the PKK. However, Öcalan continued to lead the organization even from his prison cell, ordering a ceasefire that lasted from 1999 to 2004. In 2005, he ordered his followers to abandon the idea of an independent Kurdish state and to campaign for autonomy within their respective countries.
In 2008, some attempts began to resolve the “Kurdish issue” in Turkey, and several years later, Öcalan participated in the first informal peace talks when Erdoğan was Prime Minister. The talks, led by then-intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, now Foreign Minister, raised hopes among Kurds for a resolution to their future within Turkey’s borders. However, the efforts collapsed in July 2015, leading to one of the bloodiest chapters in the conflict. The following year, Öcalan stated that “neither side will win this war,” according to his brother Mehmet.
Since then, “Kurdish society has diversified, and the Kurdish political and legal movement has established itself as a key player,” says Hamit Bozarslan, director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. The researcher adds that “Öcalan remains the central player,” noting that “for a large number of Kurds, he not only embodies the cause but the entire Kurdish nation.”
Öcalan’s fate remains unknown, but an official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) hinted that his detention regime “will be eased,” according to the pro-government “Türkiye” newspaper. The official said, “Some administrative measures will be taken, an officer will be appointed to assist him in (İmralı prison). Detention conditions will be eased… the frequency of his meetings with the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party and his family will also increase.” He also noted that the Kurdish leader fears for his life if he is released from prison and “knows he will face a security problem when he gets out.”
