Erdoğan-ally, far-right MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli welcomed three pro-Kurdish DEM Party politicians following the latter’s visit to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Previously called for the closure of the DEM Party over alleged links to the outlawed PKK, Bahçeli recently invited jailed Öcalan to the parliament to announce the dissolution of the PKK.
Turkish ruling alliance partner, far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli on Jan. 2 met with pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party politicians.
The politicians included lawmakers Pervin Buldan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, and Mardin co-mayor Ahmet Türk who was recently ousted by the government and replaced with a trustee mayor.
Buldan and Önder met the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, for talks on his island prison on Dec. 28.
The meeting held on the İmralı Island, south of Istanbul, came after Bahçeli’s surprise proposal to end the conflict, suggesting in October that Öcalan should announce an end to the insurgency at the Parliament in exchange for the possibility of his release.
The meeting between DEM politicians and Bahçeli lasted for 40 minutes. No statements were made after it.
Before meeting with Bahçeli, the three politicians also visited Parliamentary Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş on the same day.
Following the meeting on the İmralı Island, Öcalan said he was “ready to take (the) necessary positive step and make the call,” in response to Bahçeli.
Öcalan has been serving a life sentence in a prison on the İmralı Island since his capture 26 years ago.
Turkey and its Western allies deem the PKK a “terrorist” group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which in the past was focused in the mainly Kurdish southeast but is now centered on northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
One major development in the region has been the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria last month. Turkey has repeatedly said there would be no place for the Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara sees as an extension of the PKK, in Syria’s future.
duvarenglish.com