19-03-2024 07:04 AM Jerusalem Timing

Pro-Kurdish Party Hopeful of PKK Ceasefire as Turkish Election Nears

Pro-Kurdish Party Hopeful of PKK Ceasefire as Turkish Election Nears

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition said on Thursday it hoped Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants would announce a halt to hostilities soon to ease security concerns ahead of a Nov. 1 parliamentary election.

Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition said on Thursday it hoped Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants would announce a halt to hostilities soon to ease security concerns ahead of a Nov. 1 parliamentary election.

The PKK's three-decade conflict with the state has flared anew since July, when Turkey launched air strikes on militant camps in response to what it said were rising attacks on the security forces, ending a ceasefire declared in March 2013.

Hundreds have since died in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Writing in the Kurdish Ozgur Gundem newspaper this week, senior PKK figure Bese Hozat hinted at a ceasefire as a way of bolstering the political chances of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the upcoming election.

"The freedom movement will take a historic stance again to make a greater contribution to the HDP's great victory on Nov. 1," wrote Hozat, co-leader of the PKK umbrella group KCK.

HDP deputy Ertugrul Kurkcu said his party had repeatedly proposed such a move and was optimistic it would now come.