DEM Party's İmralı delegation set to visit northern Iraq
ANKARA
A delegation from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) is set to visit the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the weekend following their rare meetings with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.
The delegation will meet with KRG President Nechirvan Barzani and Deputy Prime Minister Qubat Talabani, as well as Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani.
DEM Party said on Feb. 10 executives will join lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder during the visits.
Meetings with Nechirvan Barzani and his uncle, Masoud Barzani, are scheduled for Feb. 16, while talks with the Talabani brothers in Sulaymaniyah will take place on Feb. 17.
The group plans to discuss details of the meetings with Öcalan and gather opinions from political figures on the ongoing process, according to the party.
Önder and 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.
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 listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union.
