The DEM Party is expected to hold a face-to-face meeting with Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison for 25 years.
Turkey has allowed a representative of the Kurdish party to visit the founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in his prison on his island, marking the first such visit in almost a decade.
The Ministry of Justice will accept the request of the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) to meet with Abdullah Ocalan, who is in solitary confinement, a DEM spokesperson said on Friday.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc confirmed the move in a press release for TGRT.
“We responded well to DEM's request for a meeting. “Depending on the weather, they will go to Imrali tomorrow (Saturday) or Sunday,” he said, referring to the prison island where Ocalan has spent 25 years.
Friday's decision came after the DEM requested the visit last month, shortly after a key ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expanded the idea of ending the 40-year conflict between the government and Ocalan's outlawed PKK.
Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, called for his release a month after he proposed that Ocalan declare an end to the insurgency.
Erdogan described Bahceli's first proposal as “a well-known opportunity”. After the latest call last month, Erdogan said he was in full agreement with Bahceli on every topic and that they were acting in harmony and cooperation.
“To be honest, the picture in front of us does not allow us to be optimistic,” Erdogan said in the parliament. Despite all these challenges, we are thinking about what we can do with a long-term perspective that focuses on the present and the future.
Bahceli regularly accuses pro-Kurdish politicians of being weapons of the PKK, which they deny.
Regional change
The original DEM party participated in peace talks between Ankara and Ocalan ten years ago, meeting him for the last time in April 2015.
A peace process and a cease-fire collapsed later, leading to the deadliest phase of the conflict.
DEM MP Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan, who both met with Ocalan as part of peace talks at the time, will travel to Imrali Island to meet with him this week, the party said.
Turkey and its Western allies refer to the PKK as a “terrorist group”. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which previously focused on the Kurdish southeast but has now spread to northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
Regional instability and political change are seen as reasons for ending the conflict with the PKK. The chances of success are unclear because Ankara has not given any information on what it will do.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria this month, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which it sees as an extension of the PKK, must be disbanded, saying the group has no place in Syria. in the future.
The YPG is the main wing of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The leader of the SDF Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) admitted the presence of PKK forces in Syria for the first time last week, saying that they helped fight against the fighters of ISIL (ISIS) and will return home if they agree to end the war with Turkey, a priority from the Ankara.
Turkish authorities have continued to oppose what they believe to be the PKK. Last month, the government replaced five pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities over suspected PKK involvement, drawing criticism from the DEM and others.