With President Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç granted permission for two DEM Party heavyweights, Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, to visit PKK’s founding leader Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı Island Prison, where they reportedly met for approximately three hours.
The first tangible outcome of the “Öcalan Initiative” – which MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli initiated by shaking hands with DEM Party members at the Parliament’s opening on October 1 – materialized on December 28. With President Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç granted permission for two DEM Party heavyweights, Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, to visit PKK’s founding leader Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı Island Prison, where they reportedly met for approximately three hours.
That same day, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was reiterating Türkiye’s unchanged position to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a phone call: Türkiye would not tolerate any armed forces linked to the YPG or PKK in the Syrian border region.
The timing of both the long-anticipated DEM-Öcalan meeting permission coinciding with CHP’s minimum wage protest rally in Ankara and this phone call could be mere coincidence – such coincidences, though rare, do occur in politics.
Let’s examine the substance of the message.
What is Öcalan’s message to the PKK?
Önder, who also serves as Deputy Speaker of Parliament, and Buldan shared their meeting impressions and “the general framework of Öcalan’s thoughts and approach” on December 29 through an official DEM Party statement.
The statement’s opening paragraph addresses a topic frequently emphasized in PKK’s European wing’s propaganda: Öcalan is “in good health and high spirits.” However, this time Öcalan’s message directly addresses the PKK; it shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a vague call to “silence the weapons.” The government granted the DEM delegation permission specifically to request that they call on the PKK to lay down their arms.
This brings us to the first of two crucial statements in the message.
The most significant expression in Öcalan’s message, which official sources have thus far viewed “positively,” is “I am prepared to take the positive step and make the call.”
Will the PKK disarm?
I’ll address the second statement shortly, but it’s worth noting that when the Buldan-Önder duo stated they would share their DEM Party’s institutional meetings with Öcalan “after consulting both the state and political circles,” this should be seen as largely procedural. While not explicitly named, the reference to “opposition” likely includes the CHP.
The decision appears to have been largely made: The AKP and its ally MHP are clearly waiting for the “lay down your weapons” call. The crucial question is whether PKK-KCK leaders in Kandil and Brussels will heed this call.
This takes us back to precisely where we were on March 21, 2015. Ankara had similar expectations for Öcalan’s message to be read at the 2015 Nowruz celebrations in Diyarbakır, but instead came HDP (DEM’s predecessor) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş’s March 17 declaration “We won’t let you become president.”
These words, which effectively ended the “solution process” from Erdoğan’s perspective, became the unofficial justification for keeping Demirtaş imprisoned – similar to the Gezi Trial and Osman Kavala case – even if the Kobani Trial hadn’t been initiated. The last institutional contact between Öcalan and HDP occurred on April 5, 2015, after that expected message failed to materialize. We all remember how Bahçeli’s demand for new elections after AKP lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7, 2015 elections transformed the entire political landscape.
Let’s examine the second statement
The second crucial statement in Öcalan’s message – as reported – actually seems intended to guarantee PKK’s positive response to his call to “abandon armed struggle,” notably appearing earlier in the text.
The permission granted for his nephew Ömer Öcalan to visit İmralı immediately following Bahçeli’s October 22 statement “Let Öcalan speak in Parliament” was categorized as a “family visit” despite Ömer being a DEM deputy. The Buldan-Önder visit marks the first institutional party visit since April 5, 2015. The statement reads:
“I possess the competence and resolve to make the necessary positive contribution to the new paradigm that Mr. Bahçeli and Mr. Erdoğan have empowered.”
The key question that will unfold in subsequent developments is whether he truly has this “competence and resolve”: Can Öcalan still command the obedience of the organization he founded after 25 years of imprisonment?
Öcalan’s stance on “foreign powers”
When Öcalan references “events in Gaza and Syria” in his message and speaks of the process being “corrupted by external interventions,” he appears to be addressing how Kandil has become perceived as a U.S. proxy force in the Iraq-Syria region through its fight against ISIS (DAESH) and alongside the YPG. The question arises: Is Öcalan ordering Kandil to step out of America’s shadow, and if so, can he enforce this?
In this context, it’s significant to note Ankara’s careful attention to the statements made by Mazlum Abdi Şahin – who heads the U.S. Special Forces-established SDF for PKK’s Syrian wing PYD – in his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. The SDF claims readiness to “demilitarize” the region and transfer control of the Turkish border to the new Syrian army formed under HTS leadership, aiming to prevent either Turkish-backed SMO forces or the Turkish army directly from entering Kobani (Ayn al-Arab).
As mentioned at the start, Fidan delivered his message about the YPG to Blinken on the same day; Ankara seeks concrete actions to prove these statements aren’t merely tactical deception.
“Mr. Bahçeli, Mr. Erdoğan”
Let’s engage in some Kremlinology.
This refers to the art of interpreting minor signals in closed political systems, like the former Soviet Union. While often unreliable due to potential manipulation, let’s attempt this analysis.
In Öcalan’s message published on the DEM website, assuming it’s not a clerical error, the statement I referenced begins with “empowered by Mr. Bahçeli and Mr. Erdoğan.”
Notably, it’s not “Mr. Erdoğan and Mr. Bahçeli” – deviating from official state protocol order by prioritizing “Mr. Bahçeli.”
While its duration remains uncertain, does this phrasing indicate the ongoing MHP-DEM rapprochement that Bahçeli initiated? I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon hear “Mr. Öcalan” instead of “Baby killer” from unexpected voices under the Parliament’s roof.
This suggests new political dynamics emerging in 2025. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to disagree with the closing sentiment in the DEM website text hoping for “an era of peace, democracy and brotherhood for Türkiye and the region.”
