Turkey has moved Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to a newly built section of the Imrali island prison where he has spent 27 years, pro-Kurdish lawmakers said over the weekend.
Mithat Sancar, a member of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM, delegation that regularly visits Mr. Ocalan, confirmed the transfer on Saturday in an interview with the Kurdish channel Medya Haber TV, Al Jazeera reported. He used the news to press the government. The move, he said, “necessitates an acceleration of the (peace) process.”
Better prison conditions for Mr. Ocalan, 77, have long been a central Kurdish demand in the effort to end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. Mr. Sancar didn’t say directly whether conditions in the new section are better.
“The process has been at a standstill for the past two months,” he said, according to an AFP account carried by Turkish Minute. “Certain dates had been set, but they were not met.”
He also said, “The process cannot proceed with unilateral expectations and demands.” Mr. Sancar wants Mr. Ocalan to coordinate the next steps through a working group on peace and the transition to politics. “This is a very important factor,” he said.
Pervin Buldan, another DEM lawmaker, said on Sunday that Mr. Ocalan had announced the move himself. She played it down. “This new facility is part of the prison; it is not somewhere outside the prison,” Ms. Buldan said, adding that “the question of status cannot be defined solely by Mr. Ocalan having moved to this location.”
Mr. Ocalan has for years asked to meet with women’s organizations, journalists and academics, she said. “But none of these meetings has taken place in the past two years,” Ms. Buldan said. “This is not enough to move the process forward. Steps need to be taken on this urgently.”
Kurdistan24, a broadcaster based in Erbil, Iraq, described the facility as a new house built for Mr. Ocalan on the island and said the transfer was seen as groundwork for a larger role for him in the peace process.
That role has limits set by Ankara. In September, Mehmet Ucum, a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Mr. Ocalan would sit on a panel overseeing the PKK’s disarmament, and said that would not mean his release. The DEM party accuses Mr. Erdogan’s government of stalling.
Mr. Ocalan and others founded the PKK in 1978. It first sought an independent Kurdish state, then shifted to demanding autonomy and more rights for Kurds, who make up an estimated 15 to 20 percent of Turkey’s population. The group took up arms in 1984, and Turkey, the United States and the EU list it as a terrorist organization. Mr. Ocalan has been held on Imrali, in the Sea of Marmara, since his capture in 1999.
In February 2025, he called on the PKK to disband and disarm. The group announced its dissolution that May.
Turkey’s parliament passed a law in August that allows some PKK-related investigations, trials and prison sentences to be suspended under set conditions, Turkish Minute reported. It excludes offenses that would let Mr. Ocalan benefit. PKK leaders have repeatedly demanded his release.