Turkey allows pro-Kurdish DEM party to meet with jailed PKK leader Ocalan
The permission comes as part of the government’s tentative Kurdish opening.
ANKARA — In a significant step for Turkey's nascent Kurdish reconciliation efforts, the Justice Ministry on Friday approved a historic meeting between lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM party and Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Weather permitting, a group of DEM lawmakers including Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder are expected to travel on Saturday or Sunday to Imrali Island off the coast of Istanbul, home to the prison where Ocalan has been serving a life sentence without parole since 1999, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc announced on Friday.
The DEM Party submitted an application on Nov. 26 to Turkish authorities to meet with the militant leader, amid the Turkish government’s tentative efforts to introduce dialogue in addition to military means to solve the country’s 40-year-old Kurdish conflict.
In a striking U-turn in October, Devlet Bahceli, the ultranationalist leader and a top political ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggested that the conditions of Ocalan’s life sentence without parole be reconsidered if the Kurdish militant leader agrees to declare the dissolution of his outlawed armed group.
