Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the opening of the new terminal of Aden Abdulle International Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia on January 25. 2015 AMISOM Photo / Ilyas Ahmed
After a decades-long insurgency, Turkey’s separatist Kurds, led by the PKK, have decided to disband and lay down their weapons. Alexandra Sharp reports in Foreign Policy:
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced on Monday that it will disband and stop its armed struggle against the Turkish state, ending one of the region’s longest insurgencies. Analysts say that the move could improve the country’s political and economic stability while also easing tensions in neighboring Iraq and Syria, which have large Kurdish presences.
The PKK launched its decades-long insurgency in 1984 with the intention of creating an independent Kurdish state; Kurds make up roughly 15 percent to 20 percent of Turkey’s population. However, over the years, the group’s goals have shifted to instead seek greater Kurdish rights and establish limited autonomy in the country’s southeastern region.
Read more here.
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