Jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founder Abdullah Öcalan warned Monday against delaying legal steps to advance a peace process with Turkey, saying continued uncertainty would “generate risk.”
The PKK last year formally renounced its armed campaign against the Turkish state after four decades of conflict that claimed at least 50,000 lives on both sides.
Öcalan’s message was released by a delegation from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), whose lawmakers visited him Sunday on İmralı prison island, where he has been held since 1999.
“It is crucial that all these efforts are grounded in a legal framework,” Öcalan said, urging those involved in the process to act with “responsibility.”
“Remaining in a state of expectation, or prolonging that state, only generates risk. We have no time to lose.”
Öcalan also referred to clashes at the headquarters of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Ankara on Sunday, where riot police fired tear gas at supporters of ousted party leader Özgür Özel days after a court dismissed the party’s leadership.
The confrontation followed an Ankara court ruling that annulled the CHP’s 2023 leadership election and reinstated former chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as interim leader, in a move critics say marked a new stage in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s crackdown on political rivals.
“Is breaking into the headquarters of a political party by smashing the door with a sledgehammer something that should happen in a democracy?” Öcalan asked.
He said the actions against the CHP were an “indicator of the absence of a properly functioning democracy and democratic politics.”
The DEM Party said its delegation was due to visit Özel on Monday at his offices in the Turkish Parliament, where he is now operating.
© Agence France-Presse