Turkey’s Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın denied that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has met with Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Kalın’s statement was in response to journalist Amed Dicle’s remarks that the AKP had met with Öcalan, and that the Turkish government, unable to get the answer it desired from Öcalan during the alleged meetings, had intensified the PKK leader’s isolation.
Kalın responded to Dicle’s statements saying, “these are allegations put forward by certain circles in order to gain political advantage for themselves”, upon which, on Wednesday, the journalist asked the reason for the absolute isolation imposed on Öcalan for more than two years.
“Let the family and lawyers be allowed to see him and let’s find out what is really going on there,” Dicle said. Öcalan has had no contact with the outside world since 25 March 2021, and despite repeated requests, the authorities have denied all requests from his family and lawyers for visits, citing disciplinary penalties.
Dicle, who writes for Medya News, told the Yeni Yaşam newspaper on 10 April that as Turkey entered the election campaign period, government officials tried to establish indirect contact with the Qandil mountains, where the PKK is based, as well as holding meetings with Öcalan, but again failed to get what they wanted.
Analysts say the Kurdish vote will be decisive in Turkey’s critical 14 May elections. After more than 20 years in power, now with its lowest level of popular support, the question of whether the AKP would attempt to win Kurdish votes in the face of the risk of losing the elections is one of the questions that has been occupying the country’s political agenda recently.
“We know that in the last one-and-a-half to two years, there has been very heavy communications traffic from Ankara to İmralı,” Dicle said, referring to İmralı Island Prison, where Öcalan is imprisoned.
In recent weeks, after the main opposition bloc’s presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu met with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairs and vowed to peacefully resolve the Kurdish conflict in parliament, AKP officials started to accuse Kılıçdaroğlu and his Republican People’s Party (CHP) of standing “shoulder to shoulder with terrorism”.
In response to the ruling party’s accusations against the opposition, PKK executive Duran Kalkan told Medya Haber TV on 18 April that the AKP was the political party that conducted the most talk with the PKK in Turkey. “They accuse everyone of having affiliated with the PKK,” Kalkan said. “But Erdoğan has the closest relations with the PKK. [AKP officials] have even been to İmralı Prison.”
Kalın’s statement came after jailed former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş quoted Yeni Yaşam’s interview with Dicle on Tuesday and asked, “What do you think Erdoğan wanted from sending a delegation to İmralı?”
“When he couldn’t get what he wanted, it seems he started accusing us all of collaborating with ‘terrorism’ again. I leave you to appreciate this hypocrisy,” Demirtaş said on Twitter.
