Five-member delegation meeting jailed PKK leader Öcalan

ISTANBUL

HDP's İdris Baluken shared this photo with senior PKK members in Kandil on Jan 22 on his Twitter account.

A five-member delegation will meet Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), March 14 on İmralı Island where Öcalan is serving a life sentence.

The delegation includes People’s Democratic Party (HDP) deputy parliamentary group chair İdris Baluken and Ceylan Bağrıyanık, a women’s rights activist and writer, who held talks March 13 with executives of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), a supra organization that includes the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq..

The other members of the delegation are HDP deputy parliamentary group chair Pervin Buldan, HDP lawmaker Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Hatip Dicle, the co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK).

Baluken and Bağrıyanık are expected to convey the message they received from Kandil to Öcalan during the meeting. 

Discussions between parties involved in Turkey’s Kurdish peace process accelerated in the run-up to Nevruz, March 21, which the government has highlighted as a potential milestone for the bid ahead of June 7 parliamentary elections.

The wording of a message to be sent by Öcalan, to be read out during March 21 festivities Diyarbakır, is vital for both the government and PKK militants. 


The HDP insists that Öcalan’s message should be visual if he is to call the PKK to bid farewell to arms.