Turkish legislators will visit Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in an attempt to advance efforts to dissolve the Kurdish militia, following a vote at a parliamentary commission on Friday.
The visit will be the first recorded trip by Members of Parliament who are not from pro-Kurdish groups. It marks a significant shift by Turkish officials, in their willingness to engage with Ocalan, as they attempt to eliminate the militant group he founded over four decades ago.
A majority of MPs on a committee leading efforts to dissolve the PKK voted to send four people to visit Ocalan, state broadcaster TRT reported.
Serving a life sentence on a remote island prison in the Sea of Marmara, south of Istanbul, Ocalan has spent long stretches during his 25-year incarceration in near-total isolation, with limited contact with his lawyers and family.
No date has been set for the visit, but Feti Yildiz, from the ultranationalist MHP party, told Turkish media on Friday that it would happen “within a few days”.
In February, Ocalan, called on PKK members to disarm and dissolve the group that he founded in the late 1970s. In July, PKK fighters burnt some of their weapons in what Kurdish politicians in Turkey described as a sign of the militants' preparedness to move away from armed struggle. And, in recent weeks, the group announced both its withdrawal from Turkey and areas of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
The PKK’s full dissolution would end one of the Middle East’s longest conflicts, which has defined modern Turkey and caused the deaths of at least 40,000 people on both sides. The group is designated as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the US and the EU, and it is widely seen in Turkey as the country's number one security threat.
But efforts to work out a framework determining the future for former PKK militants have been slow. Some in Turkey believe they should be allowed to return home and be granted amnesty, while others, including veterans’ representatives, firmly reject this path. The wildly differing views have made it hard to come to a consensus, complicating a push for the parliamentary commission to propose legislation over the PKK members’ fate.
MPs in favour of visiting Ocalan are framing the move as a way to advance what they describe as a process leading to a “terror-free Turkey” and insist there will be no negotiation with the PKK leader.
“This is only about documenting his views, as we have done with everyone else. There will be no bargaining, no give-and-take,” Mr Yildiz said. “Once the organisation fully disarms and fulfils all requirements, legal arrangements can be shared with the public through a report.”
MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, who initially called on Mr Ocalan to dissolve the PKK last year, has been a key proponent of visiting him in prison.
“If direct contact cannot be established with one of the main parties to the process, how will results be achieved, and how will progress be made?” he said t party officials this week.
Opposing the visit is Turkey’s largest opposition party, the People’s Republican Party (CHP). It abstained from the commission vote on Friday afternoon and group vice president Murat Emir told reporters that they rejected “a visit, conducted in secret from the public”.
