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 was the party’s first in almost 10 years.

DEM’s predecessor, the HDP party, last met Ocalan in April 2015.

On Friday, the government approved DEM’s request to visit Ocalan, who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party nearly half a century ago and has languished in solitary confinement since 1999.

The PKK is regarded as a “terror” organization by Turkiye and most of its Western allies, including the US and EU.

The DEM party delegation was made up of two lawmakers — Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan.

DEM’s co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan hoped the talks with Ocalan will “open a new era” for a democratic settlement to the Kurdish problem.

“While I speak here, our delegation is meeting with Abdullah Ocalan at Imrali island. We

believe it’s important,” he told reporters in the Uludere district near the Iraqi border.

“Imrali’s door must be unlocked,” Bakirhan said. “I hope that the discussions there will enable the Kurdish issue to be resolved through democratic means and on a democratic basis.”

Saturday’s rare visit became possible after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ally Devlet Bahceli invited Ocalan to come to parliament to renounce “terror,” and to disband the militant group.

Erdogan backed the unprecedented appeal as a “historic window of opportunity.”

“My dear Kurdish brothers, we expect you to firmly grasp (Bahceli’s) sincerely outstretched hand,” he said in October, urging them to join in efforts to build what he called the “century of Turkiye.”

Soon after Bahceli’s call, Ocalan was allowed his first family visit since March 2020, prompting DEM to make its own request to the Justice Ministry to visit the 75-year-old militant.

PKK militants subsequently claimed responsibility for an attack in October on a Turkish defense firm that killed five. That delayed the government approval of DEM’s request.