Diyarbakir, Turkey (Reuters)-a jailed Kurdish Leader Abdullah Ocalan, announced a cease-fire Thursday and asked the militants to put down arms and withdraw from Turkey's territory.
The announcement raises hopes for an end to three decades of conflict between Kurdish militants and the Government of Turkey that has killed tens of thousands of people, the AFP report.
"We are at a stage where the weapons must be silenced," Ocalan said in a letter written from his prison island that strangled and be read to a broad audience in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, Southeast Turkey,, by a member of the Kurdish Parliament.
"We are at a stage where our armed elements should be withdrawn from Turkey," said the leader of the Kurdistan Workers ' Party (PKK), adding that it was time for political struggle is carried out.
This appeal was submitted to coincide with the time the Kurdish new year or Newroz, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered to celebrate in Diyarbakir.
The announcement of the Armistice that shut down secret peace talks over the past few months between Turkey and Ocalan's intelligence.
Officials started negotiations with Turkey on Ocalan last October, with the main purpose of disarming rebels who use bases in Iraq as a place to launch attacks against security forces in the southeastern region of Turkey.
According to a plan that covered government and Ocalan Ankara, PKK would end hostilities and withdraw fighters from Turkey-warriors as the beginning of disarmament, in exchange for greater rights for Kurds established in the Constitution.
The fugitive Ocalan was arrested in Kenya on February 15, 1999 in a secret operation Turkey after he was exiled from Syria, where he was based for a decade to organize much of the PKK.
The initial verdict against Ocalan death sentence converted to life imprisonment sentence on a prison island off the coast of Istanbul since 2002.
Each year the Kurdish demonstrators clashed with police to protest Turkey's arrest of their leader.
Turkey, the EU and the u.s. considers the Kurdistan Workers ' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization.
Turkey's military launched air attacks and ground operations are limited to the northern Iraq since August 2011 following the wave of attacks, the PKK guerrillas after the traffic-jammed a ceasefire before.
The PKK launched attacks from their hiding places in the remote mountains of Iraq as part of their war to gain greater rights and autonomy for the Kurdish population.
More than 40,000 people have died since the PKK took up arms in 1984. (M014)
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