Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) has called on the government to comply with a call from the Council of Europe urging Ankara to provide “the right to hope” for Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and other inmates serving life sentences without parole.
The “right to hope” refers to the assessment of whether a prisoner, based on good behavior, may be conditionally released after serving a portion of their sentence, as determined by law.
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in an interim resolution this week said Turkey should introduce legal reforms to ensure prisoners sentenced to life have a chance of release after serving a minimum period based on a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
The committee, which supervises the execution of final judgments of the ECtHR, said that a parliamentary commission, established in August to advance peace talks with the PKK as part of efforts aimed at ending the decades long conflict between Turkey and the militant group, could be used to draft such legislation. The commission has a mandate to propose legislative amendments to the Turkish parliament.
DEM Party deputy Co-chair Öztürk Türkdoğan welcomed the resolution at a news conference in the parliament on Friday, saying the principle of “the right to hope” means life prisoners must be granted a review mechanism that could eventually allow release. “The European Court of Human Rights does not accept imprisonment until the end of a person’s natural life without the possibility of release,” he said.
Türkdoğan recalled a 2014 ruling in the case of Öcalan v. Turkey in which the Strasbourg court found that prisoners serving aggravated life sentences should have a possibility of conditional release after 25 years. “Turkey has taken no steps in this regard,” he said.
He added that the Committee of Ministers raised the issue again in 2021 and recommended reforms, but Ankara failed to act. “In 2025, the committee once more noted that Turkey has not implemented the ECtHR judgments and underlined that the right to hope must be enshrined in criminal enforcement law,” Türkdoğan said.
He urged the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to honor their commitments on legal reforms.
Öcalan, 76, has been serving a life sentence on İmralı Island since 1999, after he was captured in Kenya and brought to Turkey. The PKK, which has waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s, is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The renewed peace process with the PKK was initiated in October 2024 by MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, a key government ally. Bahçeli publicly called on jailed PKK leader Öcalan to urge the militant group to lay down its arms.
He said Öcalan could benefit from the right to hope if he renounces terrorism and calls on the PKK to disarm. Öcalan responded in February with a message calling on the PKK to disarm and disband.
The PKK decided in May to disband, disarm and end its armed campaign, saying it “has completed its historic mission” in line with Öcalan’s call.
Thirty PKK militants burned their weapons in a ceremony in northern Iraq last month, marking a symbolic first step towards ending a decades-long conflict with Turkey in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
The DEM Party facilitated the talks between Öcalan and Ankara during the process by regularly visiting Öcalan in prison.