Türkiye has welcomed remarks from the PKK’s jailed leader for supporting a process that may lead the terrorist group to lay down arms.
“The presence of terrorism is poisoning democratic politics; we want a democracy not shadowed by terrorism,” Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said Sunday in the first reaction from the Turkish government to landmark statements from Abdullah Öcalan.
Öcalan is “ready to make a call” to back a new initiative by the Turkish government to end terrorism in Türkiye, a party close to the PKK said Sunday.
Two lawmakers from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), known for its closeness to the PKK, made a rare visit to Öcalan on Saturday on his prison island Imralı.
It was the second DEM meeting with Öcalan after the PKK leader’s nephew and DEM lawmaker Ömer Öcalan met him in October.
The second meeting was recently approved by the Justice Ministry, a few months after Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli made an unprecedented call for Öcalan to be temporarily released and address a DEM Party meeting at Parliament to instruct the PKK to lay down arms.
The MHP is part of the People’s Alliance, which is led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which endorses the process.
“It is a time of brotherhood and peace for Türkiye and the region,” Öcalan was quoted as saying.
“I have the competence and determination to make a positive contribution to the new paradigm started by Mr Bahçeli and Mr Erdoğan,” Öcalan said, according to a DEM statement Sunday.
Öcalan said the visiting delegation would share his approach with both the state and political circles.
“In light of this, I am ready to take the necessary positive steps and make the call.”
Öcalan has been serving a life sentence at Imralı, the south of Istanbul, since his capture 25 years ago. Though the PKK picked new senior cadres after his capture, he is still a revered figure for the group, which refers to him as “leadership.”
Yılmaz on Sunday said it was “impossible to talk about democratic politics in the true senses so long as terrorism casts its show on political parties.”
“We will not leave the security of our country to the control of others,” he added, assuring the fight against terrorism would “continue uninterrupted.”
MHP, too, touted the Imralı meeting as vital progress in Türkiye’s fight against the PKK. Deputy Chair Mevlüt Karakaya called it “perhaps the opportunity of the century.”
“This is a chance to build a more prosperous Türkiye in peace,” Karakaya said Sunday.
He argued that the government treating Bahçeli’s call as a “state policy” has helped the process “come this far.”
Bahçeli himself is expected to comment on Öcalan’s response in public remarks this week.
DEM Party co-Chair Tuncer Bakırhan lauded Öcalan’s appeal as a “historic opportunity to build a common future” in a message on social media platform X.
“We are on the eve of a potential democratic transformation across Türkiye and the region. Now is the time for courage and foresight for an honorable peace,” he said.
The terrorist group PKK, which has killed thousands since it launched its first terror attacks in the 1980s, claims to fight for Kurdish self-rule and brainwashes the Kurdish population concentrated in southeastern Türkiye to draw recruits.
Since the campaign of terrorism began, Türkiye resorted to military tactics to suppress the PKK, especially in the 1990s. Under AK Party-led governments since the early 2000s, this policy continued for a while.
In the 2010s, the AK Party launched a “reconciliation process” to address fundamental issues exploited by PKK, such as the rights of the Kurdish community. Positive steps by the government led the PKK to cease its attacks for a few years and “withdraw” to northern Iraq from the southeastern regions of Türkiye.
Yet, efforts failed due to PKK’s reluctance to further it and the emergence of a Syrian wing of the terrorist group that exploited the security vacuum in war-torn Syria.
Önder and Buldan, who met Öcalan during the reconciliation process, were part of delegations participating in the process under DEM’s spiritual predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
In his message, Öcalan said it was essential for all political circles in Türkiye to take the initiative without being confined to “narrow calculations,” “act constructive” and “provide a positive contribution” for this new process to succeed.