“Turkish lawmakers approved conditional amnesties for members of a Kurdish separatist group in an attempt to end one of the world’s longest insurgencies.

The law, which parliament passed late Monday, calls for the full disarmament of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, commonly known as the PKK, and suspends the sentences of some of its former militants. The group’s armed, four-decade insurrection against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s second-largest army has left tens of thousands of people dead across Turkey, Iraq and Syria, most of them Kurds.

Amounting to a de-facto peace accord, the historic settlement represents a definitive step by Ankara to build on a ceasefire that began after the PKK agreed to lay down its arms more than a year ago. Despite vocal objections by some opposition politicians in the runup to the vote, the bill passed with the support of more than 80% of lawmakers.”

From Bloomberg.