The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, welcomed Thursday jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan’s call for the Kurdish militant group to lay down its weapons and dissolve.
“We warmly welcome Ocalan’s message… and we call on the PKK to adhere to and implement this message,” Barzani said on X.
“We in the Kurdistan region fully support the peace process,” he added, offering his support to ensure its success.
Ocalan said earlier that “all groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself” in a declaration drawn up in his cell on Imrali prison island where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.
The call came four months after Ankara offered an olive branch to the 75-year-old who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has led a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that has cost tens of thousands of lives.
The Barzani family is a crucial powerbroker in Kurdish affairs.
Earlier in February, pro-Kurdish Turkish lawmakers conveyed a message to Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, the president’s uncle and the veteran head of the region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Masoud Barzani reaffirmed his “full support” for the peace process Thursday “in every possible way.”
He said he hoped Ocalan’s message would “put the peace process on track” to “reach a result that is in the interest of all parties.”
The other main party in the autonomous region, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, also welcomed Ocalan’s call.
“We think it is a responsible and necessary call at this stage to unite the Kurds and resolve issues through peaceful dialogue,” PUK leader Bafel Talabani said on X.
“We urge all parties to embrace this statement and take practical steps toward achieving comprehensive peace, seizing this historic opportunity.”
Turkey has long accused the PUK of leniency towards PKK activities in Iraq.
Blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and its Western allies, the PKK operates rear bases in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, where Turkey also maintains military bases and often carries out air and ground operations against the Kurdish militants.
