ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Lawyers for Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), are free to visit their client after restrictions on visitor access have been lifted, Turkey’s justice minister said on Thursday. Ocalan’s brother welcomed the move. “The previously issued restriction has been removed. The decisions that banned meetings have been removed and he can be visited,” Abdulhamit Gul told journalists in Ankara after meeting with a delegation from the Council for Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), state-owned Anadolu Agency (AA) reported. Ocalan was allowed to meet with his lawyers on May 2 for the first time in eight years. That visit was possible because the ban had been lifted as of April 17, lawyer Ibrahim Bilmez said on Thursday, adding that subsequent requests for visits have gone unanswered. “We are making daily applications to see our client. What matters is that we will be able to visit our client since there is no ban,” he said, Mezopotamya news agency reported. Jailed in 1999, Ocalan had led a Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish army inside and outside the country. He has remained an influential leader despite limited access to lawyers, family members, and media. The CPT delegation is in Turkey to inspect prison conditions at several locations, including the island jail of Imrali where Ocalan is held along with a handful of other prisoners. The committee last visited Ocalan in April 2016 and reported that “material conditions of detention have been significantly improved” compared to their January 2013 inspection, though they were worried about his lack of regular contact with the outside world. Bilmez said that the committee’s trip to Turkey was not a routinely scheduled one, but was prompted by ongoing hunger strikes by prisoners demanding better prison conditions and lifting the harsh conditions imposed on Ocalan. “It appears that the urgency of the health of the hunger strikers and the death fasts forced the CPT to be activated,” he asserted. Some 3,000 Kurdish prisoners are on hunger strike, some of them determined to starve themselves to death. Eight people have died, according to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). In a public letter delivered through his lawyers, Ocalan urged the hunger strikers to not harm their health. Ocalan’s family has been granted marginally more access to Imrali. His brother Mehmet, who visited the Kurdish leader on January 12, told Rudaw English late on Thursday that they welcome the decision making it easier to visit. “This is a good and right decision for Kurds, Turks, and the government,” he said, expressing hope it could lead to an end of the hunger strikes which have “not created a good image for Turkey.” He has not been granted permission to visit his brother since January, despite submitting weekly requests through his lawyers. They are even unable to speak on the phone with Ocalan, he said. In their last meeting, Mehmet recalled his jailed brother telling him that Kurds have to stay “united and strong and do a democratic struggle” in order to resolve the Kurdish issue. Mehmet believes his influential brother is the person to move Kurds and Turkey towards a resolution of the decades-long conflict that has claimed thousands of lives. From his jail cell, Ocalan was able to direct a two-and-a-half year long peace process that broke down in July 2015. Recent weeks have seen a spate of intense, deadly clashes between PKK guerrillas and the Turkish army both in Turkey and in the Kurdistan Region where the PKK has its headquarters.
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