ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A lawmaker from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said on Saturday that Ankara’s parliamentary commission overseeing the peace process could discuss extending the “right to hope” legal principle to jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan.
“If necessary, we will discuss Ocalan's right to hope,” AKP lawmaker Galip Ensarioglu told Rudaw.
Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, has in recent months been granted unprecedented access to mediators, family members, and lawyers after reviving peace talks with the Turkish state more than a year ago.
Earlier this year, Turkey established a 51-member parliamentary commission tasked with providing a legal basis for negotiations between Ankara and the PKK, aimed at ending a conflict that has lasted for four decades. In late November, the commission held its first meeting with Ocalan and said that “positive outcomes” had been achieved.
Ensarioglu said the commission has completed consultations and is now reviewing submissions from various parties.
“The commission has listened to all parties and some parties have submitted their reports. Now the commission is busy reading the reports of all parties,” he said, adding that the panel’s final report is expected to be completed soon and presented to parliament early next year.
Mediators in the process, including Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), have repeatedly called for applying the “right to hope” principle to Ocalan.