Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Tuesday hailed the dissolution of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), a proscribed terrorist organisation in Turkey and the European Union, which had officially announced it would disband and end its insurgency in Turkey on Monday.

“The stage which the process of creating a Turkey without terrorism has reached, with the progress made under the visionary leadership of its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the courageous and self-sacrificing determined stance of MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, has also been a great source of happiness and joy for the Turkish Cypriot people,” he said.

He said that Turkey has “been subjected to separatist terrorist acts for a very long period of more than 40 years”, and that “tens of thousands of its citizens have lost their lives” as a result.

However, he said, the Turkish government’s initiative to create a “terrorism-free Turkey” has “heralded the beginning of a new climate of peace and tranquillity, embracing all of Turkey and our region”.

“The Turkish Cypriot people, who have always felt the support of Turkey and the brotherly Turkish people, share this joy with all their sincerity,” he said.

“It is our wish that this exemplary process, which demonstrates that major political and social problems can only be solved through dialogue and mutual understanding, with the support of democratic will, will come to an end, and that the decisions taken will be implemented seriously.”

The PKK had launched its insurgency in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. In total, more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

The group had announced its dissolution on Monday following efforts from both Bahceli and Erdogan, as well as from PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who called on the group to lay down its arms in February.

Speaking on Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan described the group’s decision as “historic and significant, particularly in terms of achieving lasting peace and stability in our region”.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, also welcomed the move, with his spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying that “this decision, if implemented, represents another important step towards the peaceful resolution of a longstanding conflict”.