ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Two pro-Kurdish lawmakers arrived at Turkey’s Imrali prison on Saturday to meet the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan were granted the rare permission to meet Abdullah Ocalan after the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) put in an official request in November.
Aysegul Dogan, DEM Party spokesperson, confirmed to Rudaw that the delegation has arrived on the island, but there is little information about what else to expect.
“We do not have information on where else they went, when the meeting started, how long it will last, what will be discussed, or whether there will be a statement upon their return,” DEM Party said in a statement to journalists.
“We also do not know if they will return from the same place. The trip is entirely under the initiative of the authorities. Whether there will be a statement afterward will depend on the meeting there,” it added.
Onder and Buldan were part of a group that visited Ocalan in 2014 during a short-lived peace process between Ankara and the PKK.
Ocalan has been kept on the island prison since 1999 and is granted only irregular contact with the outside world.
His nephew Omer Ocalan, also a DEM Party lawmaker, visited the island prison in late October. It was the first face-to-face meeting between the PKK leader and his family since March 3, 2020.
The PKK leader said he was in “good health” and “sent greetings to everyone,” according to his nephew.
Ocalan’s elder brother Mehmet Ocalan last had a short phone call with him in March 2021. Numerous subsequent requests by lawyers and family to meet the PKK leader were rejected.
The government shifted its hardline stance prohibiting contact with Ocalan after Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), proposed that Ocalan address the Turkish parliament and announce the dissolution of the PKK. MHP is the government ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Founded in 1978, the PKK initially called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey.
DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), played a key role in negotiating peace talks a decade ago.
