ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Pervin Buldan from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Monday made her third visit to the Imrali prison in northwest Turkey to meet with Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), amid ongoing peace talks between the PKK and Ankara.
Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, another member of the DEM Party, are part of a delegation assigned to mediate peace talks between the PKK and the Turkish state. Onder, 62, recently suffered a heart attack and remains in critical condition.
After returning from Imrali, Buldan told journalists that Ocalan maintains his hope that the peace talks will succeed.
At the end of February, DEM Party shared with the public a letter from Ocalan. In the letter, he urged the group to disarm and disband. His message has sparked hope for an end to four decades of a conflict that has taken 40,000 lives.
The PKK subsequently announced a unilateral ceasefire and said they would hold a congress to decide their future but have insisted that Ocalan should be released from jail to lead the process.
Ankara has demanded that the PKK immediately disarm and dissolve itself.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 10 received Buldan and Onder. The rare meeting was seen as a significant step in the ongoing talks. Erdogan had last meet with a pro-Kurdish party in 2013.
