ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The strengthening of the “brotherhood” between Turks and Kurds is a “historic responsibility” and vital to reaching a permanent solution to the Kurdish issue, jailed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan said Saturday in his latest message from prison.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) sent a delegation to Turkey’s Imrali island prison on Saturday to meet Ocalan after the Turkish government recently shifted its hardline stance prohibiting contact with the PKK leader, who is granted only irregular contact with the outside world.
“He was in good health and his morale was quite high. His assessments regarding finding a permanent solution to the Kurdish cause were of vital importance,” DEM Party lawmakers Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan said in a statement on Sunday after visiting Ocalan.
“Strengthening Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood again has gained historical importance and urgency, as well as being a critical responsibility for all peoples,” the lawmakers cited him as saying.
He called on political fronts in Turkey to contribute to this process by “making positive contributions without getting caught up in narrow and periodic calculations,” and suggested the Turkish parliament as an important platform to make changes.
Ocalan also expressed his willingness to cooperate with the changes proposed by Turkish President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli.
Bahceli has proposed that Ocalan address the Turkish parliament and announce the dissolution of the PKK. MHP and AKP are government allies.
“The delegation is ready to share its approach with both the state and political circles. Under this light, we are prepared to take and call for positive steps when necessary,” Ocalan said, calling for a new era of “peace, democracy, and brotherhood” in Turkey.
On Sunday, Buldan told opposition media ANKA that they will request an appointment with political parties to explain Ocalan’s messages after the New Year and that they plan to visit Imrali “soon” again.
Ocalan has been kept in the island prison since 1999.
Founded in 1978, the PKK initially called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey.
DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), played a key role in negotiating peace talks a decade ago. The talks collapsed in 2015 and were followed by intense urban fighting in the country’s southwestern Kurdish areas.
