ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s nationalist ally on Tuesday urged jailed PKK militant group leader Abdullah Ocalan to announce the group’s disbandment after his next meeting with the country’s pro-Kurdish political party.
The remarks by Devlet Bahceli, leader of the nationalist MHP party, came after a rare meeting between officials from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party and Ocalan at the end of last year.
After that meeting, Ocalan was cited as indicating a willingness to call on the PKK to lay down arms. Two DEM sources told Reuters last week the party was now set to visit Ocalan again, as soon as this Wednesday.
The PKK, designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and European Union, has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Ocalan was captured in Kenya in 1999 and has remained in prison on Imrali island in northwest Turkey since then.
Bahceli said in parliament on Tuesday: “At the second meeting to be held between the DEM delegation and (Ocalan), it should be stated without any conditions that the organisational existence of the PKK is over.”
“PKK terrorists must either bury their weapons, hand themselves in along with their weapons, or meet their inevitable end. There is no bartering, negotiating with terror,” he said.
DEM’s first meeting with Ocalan followed Bahceli’s surprise proposal last year for Ocalan to announce the PKK’s disbandment.
The talks fostered peace hopes but the precarious situation of Kurdish forces in Syria, where rebels took over the country after 13 years of civil war, and uncertainty about the Turkish intentions have left many Kurds anxious about the path ahead.
Speaking in parliament after Bahceli’s comments, DEM’s co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan said his party stood behind Ocalan’s statements and that it was time for the government to act.
“Ocalan stated that he had the power to build peace in both of the messages he conveyed; now it’s the government’s turn. The government must take steps to resolve problems around democratisation and the Kurdish issue,” he said.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Daren Butler, Jonathan Spicer and Angus MacSwan)
