ISTANBUL: A delegation from Turkiye’s main pro-Kurdish DEM party on Saturday visited jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving life on a prison island off Istanbul, party officials said.

The visit would be the party’s first in almost 10 years. DEM’s predecessor, the HDP party, last met Ocalan in April 2015. “The delegation left in the morning,” a party source said, without elaborating how they would travel to the island for security reasons.

Turkiye’s top diplomat said Syrian Kurdish fighters essential for the United States in the fight against the militant Islamic State group cannot be sheltered in Syria, in a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Blinken that “the PKK/YPG terrorist organisation cannot be allowed to take shelter in Syria,” the ministry spokesman said, referring to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) Ankara views as a terror group.

Fidan told Blinken that Ankara backed the efforts of Syria’s new rulers to “ensure the territorial integrity and security” of the country.

He also said during the phone call that “it is important to act in cooperation with the new Syrian administration in order to ensure stability in Syria and to complete the transition period in an orderly manner,” according to the ministry spokesperson.

The government’s approval of DEM’s request to visit Ocalanv, who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) nearly half a century ago and has languished in solitary confinement since 1999, came on Friday.

The DEM party delegation is made up of two lawmakers — Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan. They are not expected to make a statement after the visit, party source said. DEM’s co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan said he hoped the talks with Ocalan would “open a new era” for a democratic settlement to the Kurdish problem.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2024