It was a frenetic week for Turkey marked primarily by the sharp curve in the Kurdish issue. The much awaited Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) announcement that it is withdrawing its forces out of Turkey was finally made at its Kandil Mountain headquarters on the Iraq-Iran border on April 25.

The outside world may wonder what the fuss was all about. After all, it was already known that Murat Karayilan, recognized as the second most authoritative name in the PKK after the imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, was going to make this declaration at the Kandil Mountain base. Unchallenged leader Ocalan had already reached an agreement with a state delegation which was meeting with him on behalf of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Nobody doubted that Karayilan whose loyalty to Ocalan is beyond dispute and the PKK organization would carry out Ocalan’s decisions.

Nevertheless, Karayilan’s announcement was an extraordinary development just as Ocalan’s Newroz message that was read to one a half million people in Diyarbakir on March 21.

First of all, the announcement that the PKK has agreed to wi thdraw from Turkey could well be the beginning of the end of the PKK's 30-year armed struggle in Turkey. Most likely it is, and that is why it is an extraordinary development.