Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party expects statement from militant leader Ocalan soon

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party expects to visit Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan in jail within days after which he is expected to make a statement on the Kurdish separatist group’s future, a DEM spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The visit to the island prison would be the third by a DEM delegation since December, advancing a government initiative for Ocalan to call on his PKK to disarm, potentially ending a more than 40-year insurgency against the Turkish state.

The DEM Party delegation has applied for permission to visit Ocalan again and anticipates the meeting will take place this week, spokesperson Aysegul Dogan said.

The party hopes Ocalan’s message will be delivered in a video message, as this would have greater impact, she said.

Ocalan has been held in near-total isolation on the prison island of Imrali since 1999, with only rare communication with the outside world.

Government and ruling party sources also say they expect a call by Ocalan for the PKK to disarm to come soon, though there is some opposition to the release of a video statement given sensitivities about the PKK, which is deemed a terrorist group.

Veteran Kurdish politician Ahmet Turk has also applied to be part of the delegation, Dogan said. If the visit proceeds as planned, the DEM delegation will issue a statement upon their return, she said.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Daren Butler and Ros Russell)