Ruling Turkish Party MP claims Turkey in talks with Ocalan, HDP refutes

ERBIL, ANKARA (K24) - An MP of the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Galip Ensarioglu claimed on Wednesday that the Turkish state is in talks with the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers' Party leader Abdullah Ocalan. Ensarioglu did not specify who or what agency represented the Turkish State in the talks.

NEGOTIATOR

In an interview with the BBC Turkish service, AKP's Kurdish Member of Parliament from Diyarbakir province said that the talks with the PKK leader, when deemed "fruitful", will expand to other fractions.

Ensarioglu did not further elaborate what he meant by "fractions" and whether he is referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in Qandil mountains of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq or the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), represented with 59 MPs in the Turkish National Assembly.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Meanwhile, the deputy chairperson of the HDP parliamentary group, Idris Baluken, refuted the claims that there are talks taking place with the PKK leader, and said Ocalan is in "a heavy solitary confinement" in the prison he is held on the Imrali Island, in the inland Sea of Marmara in Northwestern Turkey.

In response to a question by a K24 reporter at a press conference held on Wednesday at the Turkish Parliament in the capital city of Ankara, Idris Baluken accused AKP's Ensarioglu of lying. Referring to the dramatic rise in armed conflict between Turkish government forces and the PKK both in rural mountainous and urban areas often resulting in curfews, Baluken said, "All these problems are because of [Ocalan's] solitary confinement".

He said, "We have had enough of these lies. The confinement must be withheld, and the way to Imrali must be opened at once." Imrali Island's name is used to refer to the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in Turkish political and journalistic spheres.

HOSTAGE

The debate on a renewal of peace talks began on Monday when the senior PKK commander Cemil Bayik told the BBC's Mahmut Hamsici in Qandil mountains that any decision to withdraw People's Defence Forces (HPG) from inside the Turkish borders solely belongs to the PKK Presidency Council, which Bayik is a member of. People's Defence Forces (HPG) is the armed wing of PKK.

Bayik said, "The Leader Apo (short for the name Abdullah, also means uncle in Kurdish) is a hostage in their [Turks'] hands." Although he conceded that Abdullah Ocalan can play the role of an interlocutor alongside HDP in possible peace talks, "what decision can the Leader Apo make under such circumstances?" he asked.

The Turkish - Kurdish peace process that lasted for more than two years effectively ended last July when the PKK-affiliated armed youth killed two Turkish police officers in the Kurdish town of Serekani (Ceylanpinar in Turkish) in Sanliurfa province along the Turkish - Syrian border. Since then, hundreds of Turkish soldiers, police officers, PKK militants and civilians have been killed. Turkish authorities have also repeatedly imposed, sometimes week-long, curfews on several Kurdish towns.

(Adnan Gerger contributed to this report from Ankara)