Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), has called for a public debate on the legal status of jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, asking how his legal status will be addressed in the context of Turkey’s ongoing peace initiative.
Speaking at his party’s parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday, Bahçeli referred to Öcalan’s February 27, 2025, call urging the PKK to lay down its arms and dissolve, describing it as a “democratic threshold” that supports peaceful efforts.
“How will the status issue concerning İmralı [Öcalan], who serves the goal of a terrorism-free Turkey, be resolved?” Bahçeli asked.
He said the matter should be frankly discussed and resolved in line with reason and conscience.
Bahçeli’s remarks come a week after a parliamentary commission, tasked with advancing the peace talks, finalized a draft report outlining legal reforms linked to the peace process launched after the PKK announced its dissolution in May 2025.
The commission was established following Öcalan’s February 2025 prison call, which preceded the group’s decision to disband after four decades of armed conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives since 1984.
The draft report proposes revisions to terrorism legislation, reintegration measures for former PKK militants and an end to the trustee system under which elected mayors — predominantly in Kurdish-majority municipalities — are replaced by government-appointed administrators.
The report does not explicitly address Öcalan’s possible release and does not use the term “right to hope.” However, it refers to European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Turkish Constitutional Court rulings concerning sentence enforcement. Legal experts note that such language implicitly touches on the “right to hope” principle, which requires that even prisoners serving life sentences have a realistic prospect of release after a certain period.
Öcalan, 76, has been imprisoned on İmralı Island in the Marmara Sea since 1999. He is serving an aggravated life sentence — a replacement for the death penalty in Turkey — for leading an armed insurrection. Under current Turkish law, people sentenced to aggravated life for crimes against the state are not eligible for conditional release under any circumstances.
DEM Party calls for legal recognition
Later on Tuesday the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) also focused on Öcalan’s situation during its parliamentary group meeting.
“For permanent peace, Mr. Öcalan’s status must be recognized through legal regulation and secured under the law,” DEM Party Co-chair Tülay Hatimoğulları said, calling for swift legislative steps in parliament.
Hatimoğulları described February 27, 2025, as a historic turning point and argued that the Kurdish political movement had fulfilled its responsibility by declaring its commitment to silencing weapons and prioritizing democratic politics.
She said the state must now respond with concrete democratic reforms rather than security-centered approaches.
Bahçeli’s call for the return of the ‘two Ahmets’
In Tuesday’s speech Bahçeli also addressed the issue of trustees appointed in place of elected mayors. He suggested that the cases of Mardin Metropolitan Mayor Ahmet Türk and Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer — both removed from office — should be reconsidered within a democratic framework.
Türk is from the DEM Party, while Özer is a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Referring to them as “the two Ahmets,” Bahçeli said they should be allowed to return to their posts.
Türk, who attended the DEM Party’s group meeting later that day, responded by saying that the public expects “concrete steps,” signaling that symbolic gestures would not be sufficient.
The parliamentary draft report similarly proposes ending the trustee system and recommends that if a mayor is removed for any reason, a replacement should be elected by the city council rather than appointed by the central government.
The current initiative traces back to October 2024, when Bahçeli, a longtime nationalist hardliner and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s key political ally, shook hands with DEM Party lawmakers in parliament and suggested that Öcalan be allowed to address the legislature, a move widely interpreted as a signal that the government was ready for a new attempt at a settlement, having failed in an earlier peace process that collapsed in 2015.
Since then, DEM Party delegations have met with Öcalan on İmralı Island several times, most recently on February 16, shortly before the commission finalized its draft.
Critics have noted that the commission has no enforcement power, no independent monitors and that its work remains tied to Erdoğan’s own political calculations including his need for additional parliamentary support to extend his presidency beyond its 2028 constitutional limit.