Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), praised Turkish lawmakers for meeting with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), at his island prison and said the talks were justified even if some critics claim they violated the constitution or the law.
Turkey’s decades-long conflict with the PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies, killed tens of thousands of people.
Bahçeli, a key ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spoke at his party’s weekly meeting one day after a cross-party parliamentary delegation visited Öcalan on İmralı Island, where the PKK leader has been held since 1999, calling the lawmakers’ meeting with the PKK leader a “historic development.”
The lawmakers visited the island under the authority of the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission, a 51-member body created by parliament in August that is responsible for managing Turkey’s political process after the PKK declared a ceasefire, announced it would dissolve itself and conducted a symbolic ceremony marking the end of its armed campaign earlier this year.
One lawmaker each from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Bahçeli’s MHP and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) took part in the visit, while the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party, as well as several smaller parties refused to send members.
The CHP said it was not right to decide on an İmralı visit behind closed doors, while the İYİ Party denounced the delegation in fiery terms and urged voters to hold the government to account for the move.
Responding to the criticism, Bahçeli said he did not care about accusations that the lawmakers broke the law by meeting with a man convicted of leading a terrorist organization and said he would even accept “the gallows” if the talks helped remove violence from Turkish life.
Bahçeli also said Öcalan is the key figure for the government’s stated goal of creating a “terrorism-free Turkey,” a phrase used by the ruling AKP to describe its plan for ending the conflict without returning to past negotiations that collapsed in 2015.
The speaker of parliament confirmed late Monday that the lawmakers met with Öcalan and returned to Ankara with a full set of written minutes, which will be shared with the rest of the commission and used to shape the next stage of the process.
The visit is the first time a cross-party delegation, including representatives from Turkish nationalist and Kurdish political groups, has met with Öcalan, whose messages influenced an earlier peace process between 2013 and 2015 before violence resumed.
Pro-Kurdish DEM Party Co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları also called the visit a “historic step” and said peace depends on participation by all political actors, not only Kurds. She said the Kurdish issue is a major obstacle to democracy in Turkey and cannot be reduced to election politics or treated as a temporary problem that can be ignored.
Confusion grew Monday after the ruling party’s representative in the delegation, Hüseyin Yayman, first denied taking part in the visit before later confirming that he did, a sequence that fueled questions about internal divisions within the AKP-MHP alliance.
A number of pro-government newspapers did not feature the visit on their front pages, a sign analysts say reflects concern within the AKP that publicizing contact with Öcalan could upset conservative and nationalist voters who oppose any engagement with the PKK.
The commission is expected to meet again soon to study the meeting minutes and begin drafting legislation for Turkey’s post-conflict framework.