Jailed PKK leader working on Turkey-Kurd peace plan: lawmaker

Supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) display flags with a portrait of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is working on a “democratic” settlement to the four-decade conflict between Turkey and Kurdish militants, a pro-Kurdish party delegation member said on Monday (February 17, 2025) after wrapping up talks in Arbil.

A delegation from the main pro-Kurdish DEM party visited Ocalan twice over the past weeks and then held talks with Turkey’s main parliamentary factions before travelling to Iraq last weekend.

The delegation in Iraq, which included two DEM lawmakers as well as Keskin Bayindir from the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) with two seats in the Turkish parliament, met with Kurdistan’s regional president Nechirvan Barzani in Arbil.

“Mr. Ocalan is working hard to find a process that could lead to a solution despite all the difficult conditions,” Bayindir told reporters after the meeting.

“He is working to remove this issue from the field of war and conflict and to establish a democratic and legal process” to resolve the conflict, he added.

“This roadmap will also stop the crises in the Middle East,” Bayindir said.

Although no timing has been set for presenting Ocalan’s plan, Kurdish politicians are confident it will be soon, and no later than Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, in March.

The delegation will hold talks in Sulaymaniyah on Tuesday.

Militants from Ocalan’s PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, operate in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, where Turkey also maintains military bases.

With peace efforts frozen for nearly a decade, Turkey’s hardline nationalist MHP party unexpectedly offered an olive branch to Ocalan in October.

It urged him to renounce violence in exchange for a possible early release from Imrali island, where he has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement since 1999.

Backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the call has renewed hopes of an end to a conflict that has killed tens of thousands.