DEM Party to visit Öcalan for third time

ANKARA

A delegation from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) will visit jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in the coming days, marking the third consecutive meeting with him, a senior party official said on Feb. 24.

"We expect the necessary applications to be made within a few days... After this meeting, the schedule for Öcalan's historic call will also be clear," DEM Party's Gülistan Koçyiğit said at a press conference in parliament.

Lawmakers 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.

"All practices that undermine, poison, and build barriers to the ground on which the Kurdish-Turkish alliance will be reestablished must be condemned, first and foremost by politics, but also by society," Koçyiğit said.

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.

Meanwhile, DEM Party co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları confirmed that Öcalan is expected to make a video call.

“The announcement could be made in a few days, or it could be postponed until next month,” she said.

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