The Kurdistan Workers’ Party said it will disarm and disband as part of a peace initiative with Turkey, the PKK-affiliated Firat News Agency reported.

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is an icon to many Kurds but a "terrorist" to many within wider Turkish society.

A military coup in Turkey forces much of the PKK to flee to neighboring countries such as Syria and Lebanon, where the fighters train in the Bekaa Valley. Ocalan leaves a year earlier, in 1979. The PKK carries out its first armed attack against Turkish security posts, marking the start of its armed insurgency.