ANKARA — Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan has asked his followers in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to lay down arms and dissolve the group, potentially ending a decades-long conflict with Turkey that is estimated to have killed at least 40,000 people.

“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” the jailed leader said in a statement Thursday that was read by Turkish lawmakers. “All groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”

Ocalan said that for more than a thousand years, “Turkish and Kurdish relations were defined in terms of mutual cooperation and alliance,” which was broken in the last 200 years. “Today, the main task is to restructure the historical relationship, which has become extremely fragile.”

Turkey has been at war with the PKK for almost five decades. Much of that conflict has focused on the group’s desire to establish an independent Kurdish state in the country’s southeast, but in recent years the group has called for more autonomy within Turkey instead.

“There is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realization of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way,” Ocalan said in his statement.

He added that the PKK had gained support among Kurds in the past because “the channels of democratic politics were closed” to them.

In recent months, prospects of Kurdish-Turkish peace were recharged by an unusual overture from far-right Turkish lawmaker Devlet Bahceli, an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who invited Ocalan to come to parliament and “declare that he has laid down his arms.”

Ocalan made a similar call to his followers a decade ago, but the 2013 peace process soon collapsed as tensions reignited, dragging Turkey and the PKK back into a bloody war and ending a two-year ceasefire.

Some experts say years of fighting have exhausted the PKK and that Erdogan is seizing the opportunity to end the conflict in a way that ensures Turkey emerges as the winner.

Berkay Mandiraci, a Turkey analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank in Brussels, said that Turkey was trying to end the conflict “largely on its own terms,” adding that “after a decade of heavy fighting, the group is significantly weakened.”

“Ankara is pursuing a dual strategy: keeping up the military pressure while engaging in political maneuvering,” Mandiraci told CNN. “The message seems to be: lay down arms unconditionally or face the consequences.”

It is yet to be seen what, if any, concessions the Erdogan government is willing to make to the PKK or Turkey’s Kurds in return.

Ocalan’s statement could also have far-reaching regional implications, especially in Syria, where a PKK-affiliated Kurdish militia called the People’s Protection Units (YPG) forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed force that fought ISIS.

Turkey-backed militants in the country have engaged in intense battles with the YPG since the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December. It’s unclear how a call for peace from Ocalan may resonate among Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq.

At a news conference soon after Ocalan’s announcement, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said that the call to lay down arms “was for the PKK guerrillas and not about us here in Northeast Syria.”

“I received a message here in Syria, and in the letter, (Ocalan) emphasized peace,” Abdi continued. “When peace flourishes in Turkey, it will have a positive impact on us here in Syria.”

In a statement to CNN, a YPG spokesperson praised Ocalan’s “historic message” on Thursday as one that “serves (the interests) of all the people in the region; the Kurdish people, the Turks, the Armenians, and all other communities living in the Middle East.”

“The message will for sure have significant effects, especially on the crises that are unresolved in the region,” the spokesperson, Siyamend Ali, said. “We hope that this message will be a guide for resolving the existing crises, especially in Syria where we have entered a new phase. It is our hope that conflicts will stop, democracy will rule, the ongoing problems will be resolved through dialogue, and the people in the region will be equally enjoying their rights.”

Syria’s new leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, has called on all armed factions in the country, including the YPG, to integrate into the national army, a move backed by Turkey. The YPG, however, has demanded the formation of special units within the army as a condition for its participation.

The Turkish military said on Thursday that it had continued operations against “terror groups” in Syria and Iraq.

The United States, the European Union and Turkey classify the PKK as a terrorist group.

US National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told CNN on Thursday that Ocalan’s statement is “a significant development and we hope that it will help assuage our Turkish allies about US counter-ISIS partners in northeast Syria. We believe it will help bring peace to this troubled region.”

Ocalan founded the PKK in 1978 as a Kurdish separatist group in Turkey, part of a larger separatist movement by Kurds scattered throughout the region.

Violence flared in August 1984 when fighters from the PKK killed two Turkish soldiers. As the years passed and the death toll mounted, the PKK proved to become a militant arm of a regional ethnic struggle to carry on the Kurdish culture.

Kurds are the biggest minority in Turkey, making up between 15% and 20% of the population, according to Minority Rights Group International. They also have a significant presence in northern Syria, northern Iraq and Iran.

Ocalan was captured in 1999 in Kenya by Turkish authorities, reportedly with the help of the CIA.

The Kurdish leader was sentenced in Turkey to life in prison for treason, and for years, he was the sole inmate at Imrali prison – an Alcatraz-like island south of the Sea of Marmara. He has since had extremely limited contact with the outside world, but over the past few months, at least three delegations have visited him in prison.

The Kurdish people have had a complicated relationship with Erdogan. The Turkish leader courted the Kurds in earlier years by granting them more rights and reversing restrictions on the use of their language. In 2013, Erdogan worked with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) on the brief peace process with the PKK.

Talks collapsed and ties soured in 2015. Turkey’s war with the PKK has led to a sweeping crackdown in recent years against pro-Kurdish parties, who have been accused by the Turkish government of having links to the group and its affiliates. — CNN