PKK leader transferred to new detention location

The leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, has been transferred to a new detention location, Turkish lawmakers said, criticizing the move as insufficient to advance the peace process, AFP reports.

The charismatic Kurdish guerrilla leader “announced his transfer,” said Pervin Buldan, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party (Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party), according to several Turkish news outlets, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

“This place is an integral part of the prison. It is not located outside,” she added, expressing regret that “this simple change of location does not grant him a new status.”

In early August, the Turkish parliament adopted a historic law paving the way for the reintegration of PKK fighters. The measure marked a major step in the peace process aimed at ending more than four decades of guerrilla conflict that has claimed around 50,000 lives, according to Ankara.

As part of the process, four subcommissions were established to oversee the PKK's dissolution. Abdullah Ocalan is expected to participate in discussions on the armed group's disarmament.

However, the law adopted in early August does not specify what will happen to the 77-year-old prisoner, who has been held in solitary confinement since 1999 at the prison on Imrali Island, south of Istanbul, where he is serving a life sentence.

The DEM Party on Sunday accused the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of allowing the process to drag on.

“Mr Ocalan said from the beginning that he wanted to meet with different segments of society (...), women's organizations, journalists and academics. Yet two years have passed and nothing has happened. This is insufficient to move the process forward. Action must be taken quickly,” Pervin Buldan said.

Mithat Sancar, a DEM Party lawmaker and member of the delegation appointed to visit Imrali and meet Abdullah Ocalan, also called for the process to be accelerated.

According to him, “it has been at a standstill for two months. Dates have been announced, but they have not materialized.”

He also reiterated that the PKK leader should coordinate his own working group rather than simply be a member of it.

“This is an essential factor,” he said.

Photo: Archive of the International Initiative "Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan - Peace in Kurdistan"