The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has said it will declare a ceasefire in its decades-long conflict with the Turkish state, days after its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan made an appeal for it to lay down its weapons. 

In a statement cited by a news agency close to the group, the PKK said it hoped Ankara would release Ocalan to enable him to lead the disarmament process.

The PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the US, has been fighting for a Kurdish state or an autonomous region in Turkey's southeast since the 1980s. Recent statements from the group have, however, indicated that it is relinquishing the demand for an independent state. 

Some 40,000 people have died in the fighting.

How did Erdogan respond?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Turkey would resume military operations against the PKK if they broke their pledge to disarm.

"If the promises given are not kept and an attempt is made to delay ... or deceive... we can't be blamed for what happens," Erdogan said at a fast-breaking dinner in Istanbul on the first day of Ramadan.

"If needed, we will keep up our operations ... until every last terrorist is eliminated," he added. 

What did the PKK say in its pledge?

"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 statement quoted by the ANF news agency said, referring to Ocalan.

"We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it," the statement said in what was the first public reaction from the PKK since Ocalan's call.

The group said it would halt all hostilities immediately unless it was attacked.

Ocalan, 75, has been held in an island prison off Istanbul since 1999.

Edited by: Louis Oelofse and Alex Berry