Jailed Kurdish leader urges PKK to disarm as part of peace effort with Turkey

Abdullah Ocalan is the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (AP)

Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has called on his militant group to lay down its arms and dissolve as part of a new bid to end a four decade-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

In a message from his prison on an island off Istanbul on Thursday, Ocalan said the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, should hold a congress and decide to disband.