Turkiye will allow pro-Kurdish group to visit jailed PKK founder | PKK news

The DEM party is expected to have a face-to-face meeting with Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison for 25 years.

Turkiye will allow a pro-Kurdish parliamentary group to visit the jailed founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in his island prison, marking the first such visit in nearly a decade.

The Ministry of Justice has granted the request of the People's Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) to meet with Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving time in solitary confinement, a DEM spokesperson said late Friday.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc confirmed the move in a statement to the TGRT news channel.

“We responded well to DEM's request for a meeting. Depending on the weather, they will go to Imrali tomorrow [Saturday] or on Sunday,” he said, referring to the prison island where Ocalan has been imprisoned for 25 years.

Friday's decision came after the DEM requested the visit last month, shortly after a key ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan extended a proposal to end the 40-year-old conflict between the regime and Ocalan's outlawed PKK.

Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, made the call about a month after he suggested that Ocalan declare an end to the uprising in exchange for his release.

Erdogan described Bahceli's first proposal as a “window of historical opportunity”. After the latest phone call last month, Erdogan said he fully agrees with Bahceli on all issues and that they work in harmony and cooperation.

“To be honest, the picture in front of us does not allow us to be very optimistic,” Erdogan said in parliament. “Despite all these difficulties, we consider what can be done with a long view that focuses not only on today but also on the future.”

Bahceli regularly criticizes pro-Kurdish politicians as tools of the PKK, which they deny.

Regional changes

DEM's predecessor group had been involved in peace talks between Ankara and Ocalan for the past ten years, and last met with him in April 2015.

The peace and ceasefire process collapsed soon after, unleashing the deadliest phase of the conflict.

DEM MPs Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan, who both met with Ocalan as part of peace talks at the time, will travel to Imrali Island to meet him this weekend, the party said.

Turkey and its Western allies designate the PKK as a “terrorist group”. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the war, which was previously concentrated in the Kurdish southeast but has now shifted to northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.

Growing regional instability and political volatility are seen as factors behind the bid to end the conflict with the PKK. The chances of success are unclear as Ankara has not given any indication of what it might entail.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria this month, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which it sees as an extension of the PKK, must be disbanded, saying that the group has no place in Syria. future.

The YPG is the main component of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) acknowledged the presence of PKK soldiers in Syria for the first time last week, saying that they helped fight ISIL (ISIS) fighters and would return home if there was a complete agreement with Turkiye, the main demand from Ankara.

Authorities in Turkey continued to condemn the alleged actions of the PKK. Last month, the government replaced five pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities because of alleged PKK ties, a move that drew criticism from DEM and others.