ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish lawmakers overseeing the disarmament of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group will visit its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan in his island prison, state broadcaster TRT Haber said on Friday.
The move, whose timing is not yet known, comes after a surprise call for such a visit from President Tayyip Erdogan’s ultra-nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli. For his part, Erdogan has indicated he may be open to having Ocalan address lawmakers.
In a major breakthrough last May, the PKK – designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union and Turkey – announced it would disarm and disband after a call to end its armed struggle from Ocalan.
In July, the PKK symbolically burned weapons and last month announced it was withdrawing fighters from Turkey as part of the disarmament process. It called on Ankara to take steps to let its members participate in “democratic politics”.
However, despite a Reuters report that Turkey was preparing a law to let thousands of PKK fighters and civilians return home from hideouts in northern Iraq under the negotiations, the terms of reconciliation have been sensitive.
Ankara has been wary of offering a wide amnesty for what it considers the past crimes of a terrorist organisation.
At a meeting on Friday of the parliamentary commission overseeing the disarmament process, a majority of lawmakers voted to carry out the visit to Ocalan, TRT Haber said. It did not say when it would take place.
Ocalan has been held in near-total isolation on the prison island of Imrali since his arrest in 1999, with only rare communication with the outside world.
But lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party that played a key role in facilitating the disarmament process have visited him there regularly.
The PKK’s four-decade-long insurgency – originally aimed at creating an independent state in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast – has killed more than 40,000 people, imposed a heavy economic burden and caused deep social and political divisions.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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