Even from the island prison where he has spent the past 26 years, Abdullah Ocalan still wields power over the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the rebel group he founded to fight for a Kurdish homeland. On March 1st, two days after Mr Ocalan called on the group to disarm and disband, the PKK’s commanders in northern Iraq announced they would heed the call and declared a ceasefire. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” the group said in a statement. Having claimed more than 40,000 lives, displaced millions of people, and spread from south-eastern Turkey into Iraq and Syria, one of the longest wars in the world may at last be nearing its end.

Even from the island prison where he has spent the past 26 years, Abdullah Ocalan still wields power over the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the rebel group he founded to fight for a Kurdish homeland. On March 1st, two days after Mr Ocalan called on the group to disarm and disband, the PKK’s commanders in northern Iraq announced they would heed the call and declared a ceasefire. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked,” the group said in a statement. Having claimed more than 40,000 lives, displaced millions of people, and spread from south-eastern Turkey into Iraq and Syria, one of the longest wars in the world may at last be nearing its end.