Outlawed Kurdish militants have declared a ceasefire with Turkey after a landmark call by the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, asking the group to disband.

It was the first reaction from the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) after Öcalan this week called for the dissolution of the group and asked it to lay down arms after fighting the Turkish state for more than four decades.

“In order to pave the way for the implementation of leader Apo’s call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK executive committee said, referring to Öcalan and quoted by the pro-PKK ANF news agency.

“We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee, which is based in northern Iraq, added. “None of our forces will take armed action unless attacked.”

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU, has waged an insurgency since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for Kurds, who account for about 20% of Turkey’s 85 million people.