Jailed Kurdistan Workers Party leader Abdullah Ocalan said on Friday that peace-related laws were needed for a transition to democratic integration in Türkiye, in a statement read out a year after he called on his PKK to end its decades-old insurgency and disband.
Ocalan's call could be taken to endorse a roadmap, approved last week by a Turkish parliamentary commission, that urges legal reforms to run alongside the PKK's disarmament, even though details on implementation remain hazy.
The roadmap is expected to be put before parliament next month, likely after the end of Ramadan. If it passes, it will be the first concrete step taken by Türkiye.
"The transition to democratic integration necessitates laws of peace," Ocalan said in a statement read out by a senior figure in the pro-Kurdish DEM Party at a press conference. The democratic society solution envisions a "legal framework with political, social, economic, and cultural dimensions," he added.
The leaders of DEM, which has been closely involved in the peace process, said before reading Ocalan's statement that it was time for the government to take concrete measures on issues including language, cultural and religious freedoms.
The PKK declared an end to its insurgency in May last year and its militants burned some weapons in a symbolic ceremony last July. A few months later it announced its withdrawal from Türkiye, and last week a militant source welcomed the parliament move but said there was still a lack of clarity.
"The door is opening to a new political era and strategy," Ocalan said Friday in the written statement from Imrali prison island where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.
"We aim to close the era of violence-based politics and open a process based on democratic society and the rule of law," he said, urging all segments of Turkish society to engage with the process.
Some MPs involved in drafting the parliamentary report expressed concern the text failed to mention "the Kurdish question."
Others noted the absence of reference to the "right to hope" for Ocalan -- shorthand for a possible early release -- a key concept first raised in October 2024 when Ankara extended an olive branch to him, kicking off the process.
