A Turkish parliamentary commission tasked with advancing peace talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has voted in favor of sending a delegation to İmralı Island to meet with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan amid objections from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Anka news agency reported.
There has been a heated debate in recent days about whether a delegation including members of the commission should visit Öcalan in prison as part of the ongoing peace talks with the militant group, which announced its decision in May to lay down arms and disband.
Öcalan has been held on İmralı Island since 1999 and is serving a life sentence for leading the PKK, which has waged an armed campaign against the Turkish state since 1984 that resulted in more than 40,000 deaths.
Turkey and its Western allies have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
The vote was held on Friday at the 18th meeting of the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission, which has been working since August on a legal framework for a shift from armed conflict to political dialogue.
The session, seen as the commission’s most sensitive to date, began in the afternoon and was later closed to the press. The motion to authorize a visit to İmralı passed by a majority vote, with 32 members supporting the trip, three voting against and two abstaining. CHP members did not take part in the vote.
CHP walks out, rejects joining any İmralı delegation
A controversy erupted early in the session when Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş proposed holding the meeting behind closed doors. CHP group deputy chair Murat Emir objected, announcing that while CHP would remain part of the commission, it would not contribute a representative to any delegation visiting İmralı.
“Politics cannot be carried out through faits accomplis. We do not find it appropriate for our party to contribute a member to the İmralı delegation,” Emir said, arguing that the commission’s work should not be reduced to a symbolic visit and that the public had a right to transparency.
After the decision to close the session, CHP members walked out and did not return for the vote. Emir said the party would also not join the closed portion of the meeting.
He added that state officials already communicate with İmralı and proposed using SEGBİS, Turkey’s audiovisual court-hearing system, as a less contentious alternative to sending a small group to the island.
AKP, MHP and DEM Party clear the path for approval
The commission consists of 51 members: 22 from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), 11 from the CHP, five from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), four from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), three from the New Path group and one each from several smaller parties.
Prior to the vote AKP group chairman Abdullah Güler said his party viewed the visit positively. Describing the planned trip as a “fact-finding mission,” he said a formal vote might not even be necessary but confirmed the AKP would support it if held.
MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, who first proposed creating the commission, has repeatedly pushed for direct dialogue with Öcalan. He said earlier this week that if the commission failed to act, he would “take three colleagues and go to İmralı” himself.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in remarks thanking Bahçeli, called his position “courageous, visionary and guiding,” saying that the commission should make a decision about whether a visit to Öcalan should take place.
The DEM Party also backed the visit. Party spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan urged the CHP to join the delegation, saying the main opposition should be “at the forefront of the struggle for peace.” DEM Party group deputy chair Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit is expected to represent the party during the visit.
The approval makes it possible for a four-member delegation from the commission to visit İmralı under Justice Ministry regulations.
Critics argue that the commission’s work risks being overshadowed by a single symbolic act rather than meaningful policy steps. Supporters counter that hearing Öcalan directly is essential to understanding the future of Turkey’s Kurdish question.
Outside the commission, nationalist opposition parties voiced sharp criticism. Nationalist İYİ (Good) Party leader Müsavat Dervişoğlu, in an open letter to Erdoğan, urged him to “close the İmralı file,” arguing that if major national issues were to be decided through shifting parliamentary alliances, “the need for the presidential system disappears.”
The date of the İmralı visit has not been set. The commission will determine the composition of the delegation and coordinate with the Justice Ministry.
The peace talks with the PKK were initiated by a surprise call from Bahçeli, leader of the far-right MHP and an ally of Erdoğan, when he offered Öcalan a surprise peace gesture in October 2024 if he would reject violence, in a move endorsed by Erdoğan.
In a historic statement in February, Öcalan called on the PKK to lay down its arms and dissolve, to which the PKK agreed.
Since Öcalan’s arrest in 1999, there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed that erupted in 1984 and has cost more than 40,000 lives. The last round of talks collapsed in a storm of violence in 2015.
