Ocalan Says PKK’s Mission Has Been Completed

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said the organization’s mission has been completed and called for a transition from armed struggle toward a sustained peace built through democratic politics, law, and organized society.

Ocalan made the remarks in a message to a Peace and Democratic Unity Conference in London, organized by the Kurdish Affairs Center He said moving from armed conflict to lasting peace requires profound and long-term political, legal, institutional, and social transformation aimed at building a democratic society.

Ocalan said peace cannot be established through a single agreement or law, arguing that laying down arms represents only the beginning of a broader process.

“What remains is building society,” he said, stressing that the transition from armed conflict to lasting peace requires a long-term transformation across political, legal, institutional, and social spheres.

He said the central objective of the new phase should be the construction of a democratic society rather than the continuation of armed conflict.

Addressing the future of the PKK, Ocalan said he founded the organization and described its emergence as a struggle for survival shaped by the circumstances of its time.

According to Ocalan, the PKK demonstrated the existence of the Kurdish people and broke what he described as the chain of denial. He said that, in today’s world, the Kurdish people constitute a historical reality that can no longer be denied.

“For this reason, the historical mission of our movement has been completed,” Ocalan said.

He added that, like any revolutionary structure, the PKK should change into a new form once its mission has been fulfilled.

Ocalan said dissolution or an end to the organization should not be understood as surrender, but rather as a transition into a new historical phase.

He warned that insisting on the old model would cause the greatest harm to the Kurdish people.

Ocalan said there should no longer be glorification of weapons and instead called for society to be built through democratic politics.

He said democratic politics had replaced the strategy of national liberation through armed struggle and argued that the strongest tools in the new phase are “words, law, and organized society.”

Ocalan also called for people who had participated in armed struggle to be able to return to civilian and political life.

He said they should have the opportunity to assume responsibilities through democratic politics and become active participants in a new era without weapons or violence.