Three Turkish MPs made an unprecedented visit to the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Monday, to try to push ahead a continuing peace process between the militants and Ankara.
MPs, including a representative from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), met Abdullah Ocalan at a prison on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara, south of Istanbul, Turkey’s Parliament confirmed in a statement. It was the first recorded visit to Ocalan by MPs from parties other than Turkey’s pro-Kurdish groups.
The MPs took “detailed statements” about the PKK’s pledge to disband and lay down its arms, the Parliament statement said. “As a result of the meeting, positive outcomes were achieved in terms of social integration, strengthening brotherhood and advancing the process from a regional perspective.”
In February, Ocalan called on PKK members to disarm and dissolve the group that he founded in the late 1970s. In July, PKK fighters burnt some of their weapons in what Kurdish politicians in Turkey described as a sign of the militants' preparedness to move away from armed struggle
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