DRESSED IN A navy blue jacket, Abdullah Ocalan, long considered Turkey’s public enemy number one, sat behind a long table in an island prison in the middle of the Sea of Marmara and posed for the cameras, a statement in his hand. The Turkish government did not allow the footage to be broadcast—only a still shot—so hours later, a group of Kurdish politicians who had travelled to see Mr Ocalan read his statement out. In it, Mr Ocalan called on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the rebel group he founded nearly half a century ago, to lay down its weapons and disband. “All groups must lay down their weapons,” he said, presumably also referring to the PKK’s offshoots in Syria and Iran, “and the PKK must dissolve itself.”