Turkiye's pro-Kurd party meets jailed PKK leader
The Hindu
Turkish pro-Kurdish party visits PKK leader Ocalan in prison, seeking democratic resolution to Kurdish issue.
A delegation from Turkiye’s main pro-Kurdish DEM party on Saturday (December 28, 2024) visited jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving life on a prison island off Istanbul, party officials said.
The visit would be the party's first in almost 10 years.
DEM's predecessor, the HDP party, last met Ocalan in April 2015.
"The delegation left in the morning," a party source told AFP, without elaborating how they would travel to the island for security reasons.
On Friday, the government approved DEM's request to visit Ocalan, who founded the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) nearly half a century ago and has languished in solitary confinement since 1999.
The PKK is regarded as a "terror" organisation by Turkiye and most of its Western allies, including the United States and European Union.
The DEM party delegation is made up of two lawmakers — Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan. They are not expected to make a statement after the visit, the same source told AFP.
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