DEM Party trio set to visit Öcalan for second time

ANKARA

From left to right, Pervin Buldan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Ahmet Türk.

A delegation from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) is scheduled to visit Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader serving life on a prison island off Istanbul, for the second time next week.

The visit follows their initial meeting on Dec. 28, marking the first direct contact with Öcalan in nearly a decade. The pro-Kurdish DEM Party's predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), last met him in April 2015.

The delegation made up of MPs Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Pervin Buldan were joined by the party’s former mayor, Ahmet Türk, in subsequent talks with all major parties in parliament except İYİ (Good) Party.

Before their next trip to İmralı, the trio have sought permission from the Justice Ministry to meet with former HDP members currently in prison, including Selahattin Demirtaş, Figen Yüksekdağ, Selçuk Mızraklı and Leyla Güven.

A roadmap is expected to emerge from their discussions with Öcalan, DEM Party sources told local media.

The delegation anticipates that Öcalan could call on PKK to lay down arms by mid-February if progress is made. The sources also said a legal framework might be drafted to facilitate this process, potentially leading to Öcalan being placed under house arrest.

PKK is listed as a terror organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union.

After they returned from the island, a DEM Party statement issued on Dec. 29 said Öcalan is "ready to make a call" to back a new initiative by the Turkish government to end decades of conflict.

Detained 25 years ago by Turkish security forces in Kenya after years on the run, Öcalan was sentenced to death. However, Türkiye abolished capital punishment in 2004 and he is spending his remaining years in an isolation cell on the prison island.

The visit became possible after Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli invited Öcalan to come to parliament to renounce terror and disband PKK. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his ally, backed the appeal as a "historic window of opportunity."

Days after the İmralı visit, Bahçeli described the talks as "the momentum of an auspicious beginning."

“It is a futile desire to come between Turks and Kurds, act as a battering ram for sedition and try to undermine a thousand-year-old brotherhood by imposing subversion and separatism,” he said in a written message.