DEM Party delegation meets imprisoned ex-leader

EDİRNE

A delegation from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) met with its former leader in prison on Jan. 11, the latest step in a new initiative to end the country’s 40-year conflict.

Selahattin Demirtaş, 51, was sentenced last May to 42 years in prison for his alleged role in deadly street protests in 2014. Jailed since 2016, he was convicted on dozens of charges including undermining state unity and the country's integrity.

The visit, announced in a video, came after the party met in late December with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader serving life on the İmralı prison island off Istanbul.

The visit marked the first direct contact with Öcalan in nearly a decade. The pro-Kurdish DEM Party's predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), last met him in April 2015.

PKK is listed as a terror group by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union.

Öcalan said after the visit that he was "ready to make a call" to back the new peace initiative.

Three senior figures from the DEM Party later met Demirtaş at Edirne prison near the Greek border.

In a statement released on social media after the meeting, Demirtaş called on all sides to “focus on a common future where everyone, all of us, will win.”

“We are ready to provide all kinds of support for the elimination of the conflicts that have caused unspeakable suffering in these lands for years... and for the establishment of a political peace," he said.

Demirtaş credited Öcalan with raising the chance that PKK could lay down its arms. He said that despite “good intentions,” it was necessary for “concrete steps that inspire confidence … to be taken quickly.”

DEM Party delegation was due to meet with the HDP's other former co-chair, Figen Yüksekdağ, on Jan. 12. She was sentenced last May to 30 years in prison on charges of terrorist propaganda.

The İmralı visit became possible after Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli invited Öcalan to come to parliament to renounce terror and disband PKK. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his ally, backed the appeal as a "historic window of opportunity."

Meanwhile, on Jan. 11, the MHP shared a photo of Bahçeli on X with a note reading "Everyone wins with the peace."