Turkiye government coalition partner Bahceli calls for talks with imprisoned PKK leader Ocalan

A key coalition partner in Turkiye’s government has proposed for a prominent pro-Kurdish party to hold direct talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in ongoing attempts to reach a ceasefire deal with the militant group.

In a parliamentary meeting in the Turkish capital, Ankara, today, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, told his party’s lawmakers that “We expect face-to-face contact between Imrali and the DEM group to be made without delay, and we resolutely reiterate our call.”

By Imrali, the nationalist leader meant Ocalan himself, referring to the island of Imrali – to the south of Istanbul – where the imprisoned PKK leader has been held for the past 25 years since his capture. As for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (DEM), which is the third largest in the Turkish parliament, it has a history of mediating negotiations between the government and the PKK, apparently making it the ideal pathway through which to bolster a recent revival in such talks.

Bahceli’s proposal comes a month after he suggested that Ocalan may be able to secure his possible release if he announces an end to the PKK’s decades-long fight against the Turkish state and its acts of terrorism across the country and region. Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, described his coalition partner’s initial call as a “historic window of opportunity”, but there have not yet been any open efforts toward a peace process announced by the government.

In response to Bahceli’s moves, the DEM party today applied to the Justice Ministry for its leaders to meet Ocalan, with the party’s parliamentary group Chairperson, Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, stating that “we are ready to make every contribution for a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue and the democratisation of Turkiye”.

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