Kurdish armed groups are laying down their weapons

FOR much of the past century, as the Kurds dreamed of autonomy in Turkey and the Middle East, armed groups drove the agenda. Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the largest such group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), wielded influence across Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Now, though, he says it is time for the guns to fall silent. “There is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realisation of a political system,” he said in February. After months of secret negotiations with Turkey, he called for the PKK to disband.