After Ocalan meet, Turkey opposition MPs to brief speaker, far-right leader

ANKARA (AFP): A delegation from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party said it would meet Thursday with the parliamentary speaker and far-right MHP leader amid tentative efforts to resume dialogue between Ankara and the banned PKK militant group.

In a statement, DEM said its three-person delegation would meet with Speaker Numan Kurtulmus at 1:30 pm (1030 GMT) 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 comes with an easing in tensions between Ankara and the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil and is proscribed by the United States and European Union 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 widely understood to moot a possible early release.

His outreach was backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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.”

“I am ready to take the necessary positive steps and make the call,” he said in remarks quoted by DEM.

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

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 Turkey and the region. Now is the time for courage and foresight for an honorable peace,” he said.