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Turkey to allow pro-Kurdish party to visit jailed militant leader

1 min MENA TODAY

Turkey has decided to allow parliament's pro-Kurdish DEM Party to hold face-to-face talks with militant leader Abdullah Ocalan on his island prison, the party said on Friday, setting up the first such visit in nearly a decade.

Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) display flags with a portrait of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, in Istanbul, Turkey, March 17, 2024. Reuters/Umit Bektas

Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) display flags with a portrait of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, in Istanbul, Turkey, March 17, 2024. Reuters/Umit Bektas

Turkey has decided to allow parliament's pro-Kurdish DEM Party to hold face-to-face talks with militant leader Abdullah Ocalan on his island prison, the party said on Friday, setting up the first such visit in nearly a decade.

DEM requested the visit last month, soon after a key ally of President Tayyip Erdogan expanded on a proposal to end the 40-year-old conflict between the state and Ocalan's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Ocalan has been serving an expanded life sentence in a prison on the island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, since his capture 25 years ago.

Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever

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