Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli on Dec. 6 welcomed messages delivered by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan during a recent parliamentary visit to the İmralı prison island, calling them "reasonable and positive."
"We cannot let this historic opportunity... slip through our fingers or go to waste. The political logic behind the goal of a terror-free Türkiye is focused on strengthening our national unity and brotherhood," Bahçeli said at an MHP event in the capital Ankara.
The visit, carried out on Nov. 24 by MPs from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and the MHP, came amid the government’s “terror-free Türkiye” initiative.
Reports from the meeting said Öcalan reaffirmed his previous positions regarding Türkiye and the wider region. He is also said to have offered a broad assessment of the Kurdish issue, PKK’s origins and the disarmament process, while urging that " a special law for the process should be enacted without delay."
Delegation members later briefed the parliament's Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission, which oversees the initiative, as well as party leaderships.
"The messages from the PKK's founding leadership are reasonable, positive, credible and clear," Bahçeli said.
"Making deliberate statements to the public contrary to this message, distorting the process and muddying the waters has no meaning or significance."
He cited "provocative statements, Zionist-imperialist pressure and rhetoric aimed at reviving tensions," but said the process was "reaching the result step by step, stage by stage."
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the New Path alliance — made up of the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), the Felicity Party (SP) and the Future Party — declined to join the visit.
Under the campaign, PKK has declared a ceasefire, begun disarmament steps and withdrawn its fighters from Turkish territory.
The parliamentary commission is expected to finalize its report this month, outlining legal and administrative reforms related to the initiative.
