Jailed PKK terrorist group leader Abdullah Öcalan had two visitors on Sunday. Pervin Buldan, a lawmaker from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), and Özgür Erol, a lawyer for Öcalan, traveled to the island prison Imrali in the Marmara Sea to meet him.
This is the first visit to Öcalan after the PKK announced that it would dissolve, per Öcalan’s call in February.
Buldan was part of the DEM Party delegation that visited Öcalan a few times since the terror-free Türkiye initiative was launched last year. Devlet Bahçeli, leader of government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), was the architect of the initiative that involved a call to the PKK to lay down arms. Months later, the PKK responded with a secretive congress that concluded with a declaration of dissolution on May 12.
Türkiye is in talks with authorities in Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), on how the PKK terrorists will hand over their weapons, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said following the terrorist group’s decision to disband.
"Talks are being held with our neighboring countries on how the weapons of terrorists outside our borders will be handed over. There are plans regarding how the Baghdad and Irbil administrations will take part in this process," Erdoğan said, according to a transcript of remarks he made to journalists on his return flight from Albania on Friday.
