Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

A delegation from Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish Opposition People’s Equality and Democracy party (DEM) party met Thursday (January 3, 2025) with the parliamentary speaker and far-right  Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader amid tentative efforts to resume dialogue between Ankara and the banned  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group.

DEM’s three-person delegation met with Speaker Numan Kurtulmus and then with MHP leader Devlet Bahceli.

The aim was to brief them on a rare weekend meeting with Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) who is serving life without parole on Imrali prison island near Istanbul.

It was the Ocalan’s first political visit in almost a decade and follows an easing of tension between Ankara and the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil and is proscribed by Washington and Brussels as a terror group.

The visit took place two months after Bahceli extended a surprise olive branch to Ocalan, inviting him to parliament to disband the PKK and saying he should be given the “right to hope” in remarks understood to moot a possible early release.

Backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the tentative opening came a month before Syrian rebels began a lightning 12-day offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad in a move which has forced Turkiye’s concerns about the Kurdish issue into the headlines.

During Saturday’s meeting with DEM lawmakers Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan, Ocalan said he had “the competence and determination to make a positive contribution to the new paradigm started by Mr Bahceli and Mr Erdogan”.

Positive’ talks

Onder and Buldan then “began a round of meetings with the parliamentary parties” and were joined on Thursday by Ahmet Turk, 82, a veteran Kurdish politician with a long history of involvement in efforts to resolve the Kurdish issue.

“The meeting was positive. We are hopeful,” Onder said after meeting the speaker in remarks quoted by Turkiye’s private NTV broadcaster.

The delegation would meet with Erdogan’s ruling AKP party and the main opposition CHP on Monday after which they would offer a full briefing, he said.

They also met with Bahceli for 40 minutes, local media reported, without commenting on the content of the talks.

In a weekend posting on X, DEM party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan hailed what he described as a “historic opportunity to build a common future”.

“We are on the eve of a potential democratic transformation across Turkiye and the region. Now is the time for courage and foresight for an honourable peace,” he said.

A protester holds up a placard bearing a portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of Turkiye’s banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK said in a statement issued by the pro-Kurdish DEM party on Sunday (December 29, 2024) that he is willing to contribute to peace between Turks and Kurds,

“I possess the necessary competence and determination to contribute positively to the new paradigm supported by Mr. Bahçeli and Mr. Erdogan,” the statement read, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Nationalist ally, Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP.

Mr. Ocalan has been serving a life term in prison on the Imrali island off Istanbul since 1999, after being convicted of treason. The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous state in Turkiye’s southeast since 1984, and the violence has claimed tens of thousands of lives. The group is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkiye and its Western allies.

Devlet Bahceli, who has traditionally maintained a hardline stance against the PKK, had surprised everyone in October when he suggested in the Parliament that Mr. Ocalan could be granted parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the PKK.

Erdogan offered tacit support for his ally a week later. At the time Ocalan himself had said he was ready to work for peace in a message conveyed by his nephew.

Two senior members of DEM, or the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder met with Mr. Ocalan at his prison island on Saturday (Dec. 28). The meeting was closed to the press, and no details were released until the following day.

Sunday’s (Dec. 29) one-page statement offers bullet points of what was discussed in the meeting, — a call for all parties to work together for peace.

“This is an era of peace, democracy, and fraternity for Türkiye and the region,” reads the statement’s last line.