Jailed Kurdish militant leader calls for end to conflict with Turkey

Turkey's jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down its arms on Thursday, a move that could end its 40-year conflict with Ankara and have far-reaching political and security consequences for the region.

A delegation of Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM Party visited Ocalan on Thursday in his island prison and later delivered his statement in nearby Istanbul.

"I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call," Ocalan said in a letter made public by DEM party members.

Ocalan wants his party to hold a congress and to formally agree to dissolve itself, they quoted him as saying.

The PKK is deemed a terrorist organisation by Turkey and its Western allies.

More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its fight in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland for Kurds. It has since moved away from its separatist goals and instead sought more autonomy in southeast Turkey and greater Kurdish rights.

The appeal from Ocalan could have implications for the major oil-exporting region of northern Iraq, where the PKK is based, and for neighbouring Syria, which is emerging after 13 years of civil war and the ouster in December of Bashar Al-Assad.

A Turkey-PKK peace process collapsed a decade ago. An ally of President Tayyip Erdogan proposed such a move by Ocalan four months ago.