Parliament panel hears ex-speakers as DEM Party heads to İmralı

ANKARA

A parliamentary commission overseeing the government's "terror-free Türkiye" initiative convened its seventh meeting on Aug. 28 with the participation of former parliament speakers.

The National Solidarity, Brotherhood and Democracy Commission hosted two rounds of talks with past assembly leaders. Hikmet Çetin, Ömer İzgi, Bülent Arınç, Köksal Toptan and Mehmet Ali Şahin spoke in the first session, followed by Cemil Çiçek, İsmet Yılmaz, İsmail Kahraman, Binali Yıldırım and Mustafa Şentop in the second.

Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş, who chairs the commission, said three former speakers could not be invited due to health concerns.

The panel includes all political parties represented in parliament except the İYİ (Good) Party. It is tasked with tackling legal, social and political aspects of the anti-terrorism bid.

As part of the bid, PKK announced its decision to dissolve and disarm after its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan issued a historic call to the terror group. The first group of members symbolically burned their weapons in northern Iraq last month and further steps in the disarmament process are expected.

The seventh session followed a series of meetings with legal experts, civil society groups and families affected by decades of conflict.

On Aug. 27, bar association leaders joined the commission. The meeting brought together the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) chair Erinç Sağkan and the heads of the bar associations in Diyarbakır, Hatay, Mersin, Mardin, Van, Malatya, Sivas and Bingöl.

Representatives from Istanbul and Ankara also attended on behalf of their respective associations.

Earlier sessions featured veterans’ organizations, relatives of fallen soldiers and advocacy groups such as the Saturday Mothers, Peace Mothers and Diyarbakır Mothers.

As the İYİ Party declined to join the panel, its three seats were distributed to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). Currently, the AKP has 22, CHP 11 and DEM Party five members at the 51-seat commission.

Meanwhile, DEM Party lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar, accompanied by lawyer Faik Özgür Erol, traveled to the İmralı prison island once again on Aug. 28 to meet with Öcalan.

The visit marked the first time DEM Party officials have met with him since the commission was established. The delegation was expected to brief Öcalan on the panel's work, while he was anticipated to issue messages to the public regarding PKK’s disarmament process.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, acting as a mediator between Öcalan and Ankara in the government’s campaign, last visited İmralı on July 25.

The process became possible last October when Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, a key ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, publicly called on Öcalan to renounce terrorism in parliament.

In December 2024, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç announced that the DEM Party’s request to meet with Öcalan had been approved after four and a half years, leading to a series of delegation visits to the island.