Kurdish militants ring the changes

The PKK has fought for 15 years for Kurdish autonomy

By the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Istanbul

The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has announced that it is suspending its activities and will change its name.

In a statement, the group said that new international solutions were needed after the events of 11 September.

Tens of thousands died in the bloody conflict

For 15 years the PKK fought with Turkey over the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish state in the south-east of the country.

Reliable figures are not available, but up to 35,000 - maybe even 40,000 - people were killed as the PKK attacked Turkish targets, and the Turkish security forces tried to crush them.

That violent phase of the Kurdish struggle in Turkey all but ended with the capture and imprisonment of the PKK's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999.

Since then the organisation has been pursuing political means to influence both the Turkish Government and European Union states.

The arrest of Ocalan had already affected the PKK's campaign

That has not led to any softening of the Turkish opposition to the PKK, which it refers to as a terrorist organisation.

Wednesday's statement says that the PKK's work in Turkey and the EU has been stopped.

No work, it continues, will go on under the PKK's name.

It is highly unlikely that the change will affect Turkish attitudes.

"We've seen such statements in the past," was the early reaction from one government official.

Indeed the move may not be for Turkish consumption at all.

The statement from the PKK makes reference to the changed international situation since the attacks of 11 September.

The organisation may well wish to make a symbolic break from its paramilitary past.

But it is likely that the Turkish Government will still attempt to have the organisation, whatever its name, blacklisted as terrorists by the EU.