A pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party delegation went to Imralı Island on Saturday March 14, to meet with the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The delegation consists of HDP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chairs, İdris Baluken and Pervin Buldan, HDP Istanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-chair Hatip Dicle.
Earlier, the Kurdish leader has asked his Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to hold an extra-ordinary congress in the spring to make a decision to end the armed struggle.
Abdullah Öcalan is one of the founding members of the PKK, which was established in 1978 in Turkey. He was arrested in 1999 and is serving a life sentence in the İmralı Island Prison, in the Marmara Sea.
The PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, including the United States and the European Union, has been involved in a separatist struggle with Turkey since the early 1980s.
Turkey blames the group for the deaths of thousands of people.
