Analysis
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İYİ Party Chair Müsavat Dervişoğlu and Zafer Party Chair Ümit Özdağ directed sharp criticism at the MHP as political tension rose over whether a parliamentary commission should visit İmralı Island.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet with the DEM Party’s İmralı delegation for the third time on Oct. 28, according to party officials. The delegation will include Van MP Pervin Buldan and Şanlıurfa MP Mithat Sancar, both senior figures in the DEM Party.
DEM Party Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit has renewed her party’s call for the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission to visit imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island.
A DEM Party delegation traveled to İmralı Island on Aug. 28 to meet with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, the first visit since Parliament formed the National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission.
The DEM Party delegation will visit Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK founder, on İmralı Island on Aug. 28, following weeks of criticism over limited access.
After 47 years, the PKK has decided to disband and lay down arms. According to the group’s founder, Abdullah Öcalan, this marks a paradigm shift: the struggle will now continue through strengthened political engagement. Following what both the government and opposition have called a “historic” decision, change is now expected within the DEM Party—the Kurdish political movement’s representative in Turkish Parliament. As one MP who recently visited Öcalan on İmralı Island put it: “Even the PKK is changing—why wouldn’t the DEM Party?”
Though not an official cleric, İhsan Eliaçık drew public attention when he led the funeral prayer for Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a prominent member of the İmralı delegation.