ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The family of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), met in-person with him on Wednesday at Turkey's Imrali prison for the first time in nearly four years.
Ocalan's nephew, pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) MP Omer Ocalan, said in a post on X on Thursday morning that the “face-to-face” meeting took place for the first time since March 3, 2020.
"As a family, we met with Mr. Ocalan after many years [on Wednesday]," the MP said. Abdullah Ocalan has been jailed at Imrali Island, serving a life sentence since 1999. "We want routine family visits, which are a legal right, to continue regardless of the circumstances," Omer Ocalan added.
In a subsequent post, Omer Ocalan conveyed a message from his uncle.
“The isolation continues,” the post read. “If the conditions are right, I have the theoretical and practical power to pull this process from the ground of conflict and violence to the ground of law and politics.”
Abdullah Ocalan’s elder brother Mehmet Ocalan last had a short phone call with him in March 2021. Numerous subsequent requests by lawyers and family to meet the PKK leader have been rejected.
The PKK leader said he was in “good health” and “sent greetings to everyone,” according to his nephew’s post
The DEM Party is routinely accused of being the political wing of the PKK. Founded in 1978, the PKK initially called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and Western allies. Earlier this year, the Iraqi government also declared it as a banned organization.
On Wednesday evening, a Turkish aerospace facility in Ankara’s Kahramankazan district was attacked. Five people were killed and 22 others were injured, according to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who said two attackers had been “neutralized,” adding it was “most probably” carried out by the PKK.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Turkey quickly announced strikes on alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region and Syria. Ankara stated that 32 “targets belonging to terrorists were neutralized.” Turkey uses the term “neutralize” to denote adversaries captured, wounded, or killed.
In Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria (Rojava), a media outlet close to Rojava’s ruling pro-Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) reported early Thursday that at four civilians were killed, including a five-year-old child, and 15 people injured, despite the claims of ensuring the safety of civilians.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli on Tuesday proposed allowing Oclalan to address the Turkish parliament and declare the dissolution of the armed group.
“If the isolation of the terrorist leader [Ocalan] is lifted, let him come and speak at the DEM Party Group Meeting in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Let him proclaim that terrorism has been completely eradicated and that the organization has been dissolved,” Bahceli said during a speech to his party’s bloc inside the Turkish parliament.
Bahceli, whose ultranationalist party is an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), added that Ocalan should benefit from the “right to hope” law.
For years, the MHP leader has been a stubborn opponent of pro-Kurdish parties in the country, including the DEM Party, for their alleged PKK affiliation.
Later in the day, Turkey’s largest opposition party leader Ozgur Ozel expressed support for Bahceli’s comments and “any efforts to end terrorism.”
“If no more soldiers will die, if no more blood will be shed, if mothers’ tears will no longer flow, and if guns will no longer be pointed at soldiers, then every word said to achieve this is valuable to us as CHP,” Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) leader Ozel said to his parliamentary group.
In 2013, the AKP government entered into peace talks with the PKK, paving the way for an unprecedented opening towards Kurds in the country. Kurdish politicians were able to speak freely about their rights, a topic that was previously taboo. The peace talks, which were mediated by DEM Party’s predecessor the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), collapsed in 2015 and were followed by intense urban fighting in the country’s southwestern Kurdish areas.
