DEM Party visits jailed PKK leader Öcalan for second time

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party has paid a second visit to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island, south of Istanbul, amid the government's seeming reconciliation efforts with the Kurds.

Wednesday January 22 2025 04:39 pm

Duvar English

Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party on Jan. 22 met with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), for the second time in one month.

The delegate included DEM Party lawmakers Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Pervin Buldan once again. The meeting lasted about four hours.

The previous meeting was again held on Dec. 28 on İmralı Island, south of Istanbul.

The meetings came after Erdoğan ally, far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli’s surprise proposal to end the conflict between Turkey and the PKK, suggesting in October that Öcalan should announce an end to the insurgency at the Parliament in exchange for the possibility of his release.

Following the meeting on the İmralı Island, Öcalan said he was “ready to take (the) necessary positive step and make the call,” in response to Bahçeli.

Öcalan has been serving a life sentence in a prison on the İmralı Island since his capture 26 years ago.

After the first meeting, the DEM Party politicians visited political parties at the Parliament, including Bahçeli.

Previously, Bahçeli on several occasions called for the closure of the DEM Party over its alleged ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Turkey and its Western allies deem the PKK a "terrorist" group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which in the past was focused in the mainly Kurdish southeast but is now centered on northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.

One major development in the region has been the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria last month. Turkey has repeatedly said there would be no place for the Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara sees as an extension of the PKK, in Syria's future.