The Justice Ministry has approved the pro-PKK Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party)’s request to visit the imprisoned leader of the terrorist group’s founder Abdullah Öcalan, minister Yılmaz Tunç said Friday.
The minister said DEM Party delegation would consist of Istanbul Deputy Süreyya Önder and Van Deputy Pervin Buldan. The two lawmakers would head to Imralı Island, where the PKK leader is serving a life sentence, on Saturday or Sunday, depending on the weather.
In October, the People’s Alliance, led by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of Devlet Bahçeli, made a historic call to end decades-long PKK terrorism for good. Bahçeli called for the jailed leader of the terrorist group to be eligible for a parole hearing and freely speak at Parliament so that he could call on PKK followers to lay down arms. Erdoğan supported Bahçeli’s remarks and described it as a historic window of opportunity for a terror-free Türkiye.
Öcalan conditionally accepted the unprecedented call.
“If the conditions are right, I have the theoretical and practical power to move this process from the level of conflict and violence to a political and legal level,” Öcalan was quoted as saying by Ömer Öcalan, a member of the DEM Party and Öcalan’s nephew.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by Ankara, the European Union and the U.S. PKK leader Öcalan has been imprisoned on an island off Istanbul since 1999.