Demirtaş, Türk set to visit İmralı

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Selahattin Demirtaş. DHA Photo

As another development in the ongoing “peace process,” Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and Ahmet Türk, an independent deputy who co-chairs the umbrella Democratic Society Congress (DTK), are expected to visit Jan. 23 the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı island, where he is jailed, BDP officials told Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.

The “peace process,” or “İmralı process,” refers to recent talks involving Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence on the island prison. In late December 2012, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revealed that intelligence officials were holding talks with Öcalan to convince PKK militants to lay down their arms and withdraw from Turkish soil. On Jan. 3, BDP deputy Ayla Akat and Türk were allowed to visit Öcalan as part of the process. Demirtaş recently said they were willing to visit Öcalan as a four-member group including two co-chairs of the BDP and two co-chairs of the DTK.