Justice minister refutes claim of election talks with Öcalan

ANKARA

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has refuted the claims by İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener that the government sent a judicial person to the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to ask his help for the May 14 polls.

“They lie. Technical committees go there from time to time. Where they say they have documents, they distort the work done on such an assignment. They distort the work, technical assignments and correspondence that have nothing to do with Öcalan. I know what is written in those documents,” Bozdağ said in a televised interview on May 5.

“There are a lot of technical problems going on there. The technical team goes there. This has nothing to do with Öcalan,” the minister said.

Akşener said in a live broadcast a few days ago that a delegation was sent to İmralı prison by the government to meet with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and ask for his support for the upcoming elections. She said the person who went to the prison was a member of the judiciary.

Galip Ensarioğlu, who was nominated by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as the first ordinary deputy candidate in Diyarbakır, also stated that the government was in constant contact with Öcalan.