DEM Party’s meeting with justice minister postponed

ANKARA

A scheduled meeting between a Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) delegation and Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç has been postponed after senior party figure Sırrı Süreyya Önder suffered a severe heart condition.

Önder, a member of the DEM Party delegation, was hospitalized after suffering cardiac arrest. Doctors performed a 12-hour emergency surgery that included bypass and aortic grafting after discovering a tear in his aorta.

The 62-year-old deputy parliament speaker remains in intensive care, connected to a cardiac support device due to insufficient contraction in the right side of his heart, hospital officials said.

While his condition remains critical and he is expected to be kept under sedation for five days, a new statement from the hospital said he was "responding well to treatment."

Önder is part of the DEM Party group involved in renewed dialogue efforts with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and Turkish officials. In a televised announcement on Feb. 27, Önder and other party officials relayed a message from Öcalan calling on PKK to disarm and dissolve.

The postponed meeting with Tunç was expected to include DEM Party MPs Pervin Buldan, Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit and Sezai Temelli. It was intended to follow a landmark meeting on April 10 between Önder, Buldan and Erdoğan at the presidential complex in Ankara.

It marked the first direct contact between Erdoğan and pro-Kurdish party representatives in nearly 12 years. Türkiye's intelligence chief İbrahim Kalın and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy leader Efkan Ala also attended that meeting.