ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iran’s foreign ministry on Friday welcomed jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call for the group to lay down arms and dissolve itself.

“The decision is a key step toward renouncing violence,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said, adding that Tehran supports any process that would “strengthen  security in the neighboring country of Turkey.”

Ocalan, 75,  jailed leader and founder of the PKK on Thursday called on his party to lay down arms against the Turkish state and dissolve itself in a historic declaration from Imrali Prison, where he has been held for 26 years.

The call is aimed at ending the decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish group that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Headquartered in the Kurdistan Region’s Mount Qandil, the PKK is an armed group that has fought for increased Kurdish rights in Turkey for decades. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, Europe, and the US. 

In a major move, Devlet Bahceli, head of the far-right Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), in October proposed allowing Ocalan to appear before the legislature and declare the dissolution of the PKK, an initiative immediately endorsed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish political landscape. 

Ocalan has been serving a life sentence at Imrali prison, a small but high-security facility on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara, since February 1999.

In 2013, the Turkish government, led by then-prime minister and current President Erdogan, entered a peace process with the PKK aimed at ending the decades of conflict and bloodshed. The truce was short-lived and collapsed in July 2015, leading to violent clashes in Turkey’s southeastern Kurdish areas.

Earlier on Friday, Iraq also welcomed the move, saying it “should be "translated into practical and quick steps for the party’s forces to lay down their weapons."