A pro-Kurdish lawmaker on Monday who recently met jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader #Abdullah Ocalan# at Imrali called the results from their recent meeting “much more hopeful” compared to the old peace process between Ankara and the Kurdish group.
“If we were to make a single sentence, we can say that we are much more hopeful compared to the old processes,” Pervin Buldan from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) said on X.
Buldan explained that they will not be able to reveal further information to the press yet “due to the sensitivity of the process.”
A DEM Party delegation consisting of Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder visited Ocalan in Turkey’s Imrali island prison on Saturday after the Turkish government recently shifted its hardline stance prohibiting contact with the PKK leader, who is granted only irregular contact with the outside world.
On Sunday, the lawmakers cited him as saying that “strengthening Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood again has gained historical importance and urgency, as well as being a critical responsibility for all peoples.”
They said that Ocalan called on political fronts in Turkey to contribute to the process by “making positive contributions,” suggesting the Turkish parliament as an important platform for change.
Buldan told the opposition media ANKA that they plan to visit Imrali “soon” again and will request appointments with political parties to explain Ocalan’s messages after he called for a new era of “peace, democracy, and brotherhood” in Turkey.
Ocalan also expressed his willingness to cooperate with the changes proposed by Turkish President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli.
Bahceli has proposed that Ocalan address the Turkish parliament and announce the dissolution of the PKK. MHP and AKP are government allies.
Ocalan has been kept in the island prison since 1999. On Sunday, the DEM Party lawmakers said he was in good health and had high morale.
Founded in 1978, the PKK initially called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey.
DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), played a key role in negotiating peace talks a decade ago. The talks collapsed in 2015 and were followed by intense urban fighting in the country’s southwestern Kurdish areas.[1]