Kur­dish mil­i­tants who have waged a 40-year in­sur­gency in Turkey de­clared a cease­fire on Sat­ur­day in what could mark a sig­nif­i­cant boost to Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan’s gov­ern­ment, two days af­ter their im­pris­oned leader called for the group to dis­arm.

The an­nounce­ment by the Kur­dis­tan Work­ers’ Par­ty, or PKK, comes against the back­drop of fun­da­men­tal changes in the re­gion, in­clud­ing the re­con­fig­u­ra­tion of pow­er in neigh­bor­ing Syr­ia af­ter the top­pling of Pres­i­dent Bashar As­sad, the weak­en­ing of the Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant move­ment in Lebanon and the Is­rael-Hamas war in Gaza.

The con­flict be­tween Turkey and the PKK has led to tens of thou­sands of deaths since it be­gan in 1984. The cease­fire is the first sign of a break­through since peace talks be­tween the PKK and Ankara broke down in the sum­mer of 2015.