International

The Kurdish PKK guerrilla announces its dissolution and the end of the armed struggle after 40 years

The Kurdish guerrilla of the PKK announced on Monday its dissolution and the end of its “armed fight” that began against the Turkish state 40 years ago and that has left about 45,000 dead, thus responding to the call made at the end of February from prison by the founder and leader of the organization Abdullah Öcalan.

“The 12º Congress of the PKK has decided to dissolve the organizational structure of the PKK and put an end to the method of armed struggle, whose implementation process will be directed and carried out by the APO leader (Öcalan), thus ending the activities carried out under the name of the PKK,” the guerrilla said in a statement released by the Turkish media.

Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence for 25 years, asked the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, on February 27 to abandon his weapons.

The PKK held a congress between May 5 and 7 to discuss Öcalan’s request.

“The 12º Extraordinary Congress of the PKK evaluated that the struggle of the PKK has broken the policy of denial and annihilation imposed on our people, has brought the Kurdish question to the point of being resolved through democratic politics and has thus fulfilled its historical mission” justified today this proscribed organization its decision to lay up arms.

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On the 8th, the Turkish president, the Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced at a meeting of his party, the AKP, that the disarmament of the PKK would be announced soon.

Initially, the PKK, which operates mainly from its bases in northern Iraq, had demanded that Öcalan himself lead in freedom an eventual peace process with the Turkish state.

Already in 2013, Öcalan had announced the end of the PKK’s independence aspirations, the intention to integrate the Kurds into a democratic Turkey and the abandonment of weapons, but the process was aborted in 2015 and the fighting and attacks intensified.

The Turkish government has described it as an advance to end the “scourge of terrorism” that the Kurdish guerrilla of the PKK has announced that it will dissolve.

The president of the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, celebrated this dissolution and considered it a step to promote “coexistence and stability” in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East.

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International

Football Fan Killed in Clashes After Colombian League Match

Fans of Cúcuta Deportivo and their traditional rivals Atlético Bucaramanga clashed outside the stadium following their local league match on Tuesday, leaving one supporter dead and several others injured.

The deceased fan was stabbed, according to a senior police official in Cúcuta who confirmed the cause of death in a video statement. Local media reported that the victim was a supporter of the visiting team, Atlético Bucaramanga.

The match ended in a 2-2 draw. Authorities had banned the entry of Atlético Bucaramanga’s organized supporters into the stadium in an effort to prevent disturbances.

Despite the restrictions, violence broke out in the surrounding areas after the game. Among the injured were three police officers, an institutional source told AFP.

The incident adds to a series of recent violent episodes linked to Colombian football. The most recent occurred in December, when supporters of Atlético Nacional and Independiente Medellín clashed in the stands and on the pitch, leaving 59 people injured.

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International

Missing Spanish Sailor Rescued After 11 Days Adrift in Mediterranean

The man had departed from the port of Gandía, on Spain’s eastern coast, with the intention of reaching the southern Spanish town of Guardamar del Segura, a journey of about 150 kilometers, a spokesperson for Spain’s maritime rescue service told AFP.

Search boats and aircraft were deployed on January 17, but the operation was called off on January 22 after efforts proved unsuccessful. Alerts were then issued to vessels navigating the area in case they spotted any signs of the missing sailor.

As hopes were fading, a surveillance aircraft from the European Union’s border agency Frontex spotted the sailboat on Tuesday, along with a person signaling for help, approximately 53 nautical miles northeast of Bejaia, Algeria.

A nearby vessel, the Singapore-flagged bulk carrier Thor Confidence, carried out the rescue and is expected to bring the man to an end to his ordeal when it arrives on Thursday in the southern Spanish port city of Algeciras.

Maritime rescue services shared images on social media showing a small white sailboat drifting at sea and secured alongside the much larger ship.

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It remains unclear how the sailboat ended up hundreds of kilometers off its intended route or how the man managed to survive for so long alone in open waters.

International

Rubio Says U.S. Could Participate in Follow-Up Russia-Ukraine Talks

The United States could join a new round of talks this week aimed at ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday.

Teams from Kyiv and Moscow met last Friday and Saturday in Abu Dhabi in their first publicly acknowledged direct negotiations to discuss the peace initiative promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

“They are going to hold follow-up talks again this week,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “There could be U.S. participation.”

However, Rubio suggested that Washington’s role may be more limited than during last week’s discussions, which included Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

The secretary of state indicated that progress may have already been made on security guarantees for Ukraine, one of Kyiv’s key demands in any agreement with Moscow after nearly four years of Russian invasion.

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“There is one remaining issue that everyone is familiar with, and that is the territorial claim over Donetsk,” Rubio said, referring to the eastern Ukrainian region that Russia wants Ukraine to cede.

“I know that active efforts are underway to see whether the positions of both sides on this issue can be reconciled. It remains a bridge we have not yet crossed,” he added during the hearing.

Rubio acknowledged that the territorial question would be particularly difficult for Ukraine to resolve.