ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A delegation from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) met jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan on Imrali Island and returned following the talks, DEM Party said on Monday.
The delegation included senior DEM Party figures Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar and Ocalan’s lawyer Ozgur Faik Erol. The party’s press office said the delegation would issue a statement on Tuesday regarding the content of their meeting with Ocalan.
Ocalan has been imprisoned on Imrali Island since 1999 but remains a central figure in Kurdish politics and peace efforts aimed at resolving the decades-long conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state.
The DEM Party has played a key mediating role in recent peace efforts and has visited Ocalan multiple times in prison to relay messages between him and political actors.
The latest meeting comes amid renewed political and legal discussions surrounding the Kurdish issue and the future of the peace process. Ocalan has continued to receive visits from political delegations and family members as part of ongoing dialogue efforts aimed at ending decades of violence.
In recent years, Ocalan has called for a political resolution to the Kurdish issue, including urging his followers to pursue democratic solutions and peace.
Ocalan in February 2025 called on the PKK to lay down its arms and dissolve itself as a prelude to finding a political solution to the conflict, which has claimed nearly 40,000 lives.
In May same year, the group officially declared its dissolution and an end to its armed campaign, rebranding itself as the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, and in October, it announced the withdrawal of all its fighters from Turkey as part of its push for peace with Ankara.
For its part, Ankara in August established a parliamentary commission tasked with establishing a legal framework for the peace process between Ankara and the PKK.
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