Third İmralı visit set to bring long-awaited statement

ANKARA

The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) will release a comprehensive statement on Feb. 28, which is expected to include the much-anticipated call from from PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, following a series of meetings with him, the party has announced.

DEM Party MPs Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Pervin Buldan met with Öcalan on Jan. 22, marking their second visit in less than a month.

These visits to the PKK leader, serving a life sentence on the İmralı prison island off Istanbul, were the first since members of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), met with him in April 2015.

A third visit has been approved, with a broader delegation set to meet Öcalan. The group will include DEM Party co-chairs Tülay Hatimoğulları Oruç and Tuncer Bakırhan, lawmaker Cengiz Çiçek, former Mardin Mayor Ahmet Türk and Öcalan’s lawyer Faik Özgür Erol.

The DEM Party said it would release a statement on Feb. 28, with Öcalan’s long-awaited message expected to be included.

Öcalan’s engagement with politicians became possible after Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli invited Öcalan to come to the parliament to renounce terror and disband PKK.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his ally, backed the appeal as a "historic window of opportunity."

After the delegation returned from İmralı, a DEM Party statement said Öcalan was "ready to make a call" to back a new initiative by the Turkish government to end decades of conflict.

PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union.