Bahçeli calls for new roadmap in anti-terror campaign

ANKARA

Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahçeli has called for a new roadmap in the government’s “terror-free Türkiye” initiative, proposing a new status for jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to help facilitate the terror group’s disarmament.

“A structure should be built where Öcalan can maintain his influence over the organization instead of being the founding leader of the defunct PKK,” Bahçeli said in remarks published by daily Türkgün on May 18.

The MHP leader argued that keeping Öcalan imprisoned while granting him a new “social status” would help ensure the smoother implementation of the PKK’s disarmament process.

“This coordination does not encompass issues such as the leadership and representation of the Kurds, or the advocacy of ethnic and categorical rights,” he said.

He added that authorities needed to define a roadmap for the next stage of the process and activate the necessary mechanisms.

Bahçeli first floated the proposal during a meeting on May 5, with the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) later voicing support.

“Walking towards a terror-free Türkiye with fragmented structures will delay achieving results, increase provocations, allow for external interventions, highlight and make visible the dynamics of internal conflicts within the organization, and make achieving results more difficult,” he told Türkgün.

Bahçeli said his repeated use of the phrase “founding leader of the organization” was intended to minimize risks and accelerate the process.

As part of his proposal, Bahçeli called for the establishment of two separate commissions to oversee the process.

The first would be a parliamentary “monitoring commission” made up of representatives from political parties.

The second, titled the “Commission for Guiding the Liquidation and Reorganization Process and National Unity,” would be chaired by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz and include officials from several ministries and the National Intelligence Organization.

Türkiye’s anti-terror campaign entered a new phase after PKK announced in May last year that it had ended its armed activities and dissolved its organizational structure. Two months later, a symbolic ceremony was held in Iraq during which weapons were publicly burned.