ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s justice minister said on Tuesday the pro-Kurdish DEM Party’s application to meet jailed Kurdish militant group leader Abdullah Ocalan was under consideration, without giving details.
“The process continues. We will work to determine an appropriate day,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s nationalist ally proposed last month that DEM hold direct talks with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.
DEM applied to the justice ministry on Nov. 26 for its leaders to meet Ocalan, who has been serving an aggravated life sentence in an island prison south of Istanbul since 1999. The DEM co-chairs want to hold talks with Ocalan in order to start a dialogue between the government and the PKK.
Turkey and its Western allies designate the PKK as a terrorist group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the group’s 40-year insurgency against the Turkish state.
(Reporting by Burcu Karakas; editing by Daren Butler and Mark Heinrich)
Comments