 and a key ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said the release of jailed #Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş would be “beneficial for Turkey.”){kind=link}
Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a key ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said the release of jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş would be “beneficial for Turkey,” in a striking shift from his long-standing hardline stance on Kurdish politics.
Bahçeli’s unexpected remark came outside parliament following his party’s group meeting when asked by reporters about a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decision that finalized its previous ruling calling for Demirtaş’s immediate release. “The legal path has been completed. His release would be beneficial for Turkey,” the MHP leader said.
The statement followed a move by the ECtHR, which has twice ruled that Demirtaş’s rights were violated and called for his immediate release, to reject Ankara’s final appeal on Monday. The court upheld its July 8 ruling that found the Kurdish politician’s renewed detention in connection with the Kobani trial legally unjustified.
Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — succeeded by the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) — has been imprisoned since November 2016 on terrorism-related charges that he denies. In May 2024, a Turkish court sentenced him to over 40 years in prison for allegedly inciting violence during the 2014 Kobani protests, in which 37 people were killed. He had previously received a two-year sentence in 2021 for allegedly “insulting the president.”
Following the Strasbourg court’s latest decision, Demirtaş described the ruling as “important and legally binding,” saying in a handwritten post on X that “this bond of brotherhood will be strengthened by the work we undertake to ensure freedom, justice and peace.”
Bahçeli’s statement marks a dramatic rhetorical turn from a politician who for decades positioned himself as an opponent of demands for Kurdish autonomy. His comment also comes amid the Turkish government’s efforts at establishing peace with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The renewed peace process was initiated in October 2024 by Bahçeli, who publicly called on jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to urge the militant group to lay down its arms. Öcalan responded in February with a message calling on the PKK to disarm and disband. The PKK, which began its insurgency in 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its armed campaign, saying it “has completed its historic mission” in line with Öcalan’s call.
In recent months, the government has launched a series of initiatives under the peace framework, including meetings between President Erdoğan and DEM Party representatives and the creation of a parliamentary commission to oversee reforms related to the transition from armed campaign to democratic politics.
Demirtaş, who has been imprisoned in Edirne since 2016, recently criticized the government’s handling of the process, saying it had focused solely on the militants’ laying down its arms rather than true social reconciliation between Kurds and Turks. In an opinion piece published on the T24 news website last week, he wrote that no meaningful steps have been taken to restore “the feeling of brotherhood” between Kurds and Turks, urging symbolic gestures and cultural initiatives to rebuild mutual trust.
Opposition leaders welcome Bahçeli’s comment on Demirtaş’s release
DEM Party Co-chair Tuncer Bakırhan welcomed Bahçeli’s statement but said that not only Demirtaş but all “political prisoners” should be released as part of a democratic peace process.
The pro-Kurdish movement has been targeted for years in a sweeping crackdown in which thousands of its officials and members have been jailed and many lawmakers and elected mayors have been removed from office.
As the PKK peace process has progressed over the last year, a new wave of arrests and investigations has targeted the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Bahçeli’s MHP has historically been among the fiercest opponents of Kurdish political rights and a vocal critic of any peace initiative involving the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Analysts said his recent tone underscores shifting political calculations within the ruling People’s Alliance, which has faced growing criticism over the country’s democratic backsliding.
“Bahçeli’s remarks mark a striking U-turn,” Berk Esen, a political science professor at Sabancı University, told Reuters. “Until recently, the ruling alliance accused the opposition of wanting to free Demirtaş and insisted he remain in jail, which underscores how political this case has always been.”
CHP leader Özgür Özel also welcomed Bahçeli’s remarks, calling them “very auspicious” during his party’s group meeting on Tuesday.
“Those who once boasted about imprisoning Demirtaş … should now apologize if they truly believe this [release] is for the good of Turkey. I’ll say it openly: We, too, owe an apology. As today’s CHP leader, I apologize to the entire nation for that time,” he added.
Demirtaş, who has now spent nine years behind bars, praised Bahçeli for “breaking taboos” and thanked both him and Özel for their “courage” in a handwritten message from prison shared the same day.
He wrote that “weapons will be permanently and completely removed,” referring to Öcalan’s stance on the peace process. He ended his note by saying, “We will strive to resolve all our remaining problems together through the means and conditions of democratic politics — but first, peace, peace above all.”
— Selahattin Demirtaş (@hdpdemirtas) November 4, 2025