Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his militant group Thursday to lay down its arms and dissolve as part of a new bid to end a four-decade long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The 75-year-old militant leader Abdullah Ocalan has spent a quarter of a century in jail after leading his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to take up arms against the Turkish state to fight for a Kurdish homeland.

The imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, has called for an end to the fight against the Turkish state .