February 26, 2013
ISTANBUL,— The Kurdish lawmakers that visited the island of İmralı on Saturday to meet with the jailed PKK Kurdish leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, were accompanied by two officials from the Turkish Intelligence Organization (MİT), Pervin Buldan, one of the deputies in the delegation, has said.
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy group chair Pervin Buldan spoke to DIHA (Dicle News Agency) about the recent visit she and two BDP deputies Altan Tan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder paid to Abdullah Öcalan on Imralı island on 23 February.
Buldan said the Imralı visit was the most significant meeting she ever had in her life and told the followings; "It was around 11 a.m. when the boat arrived at the island where a military official, who said he was a commander, welcomed and accompanied us to the guest room.
We waited there for some time for the MIT (National Intelligence Organization) official who was also going to attend the meeting together with our delegation. At 2 p.m. the prison administrator told us that the MIT official had arrived and the meeting with the Kurdish leader could begin. Then we went to another room where Mr. Öcalan and a MIT official were already speaking. He welcomed us and asked why we were late. After we told him that the lateness was not because of us, we, the three BDP officials and he, sat around a round table and started to talk. The MIT official sat at another table standing behind us".
Buldan said that during the meeting, which lasted nearly two hours, the Kurdish leader was quite excited and hopeful about the issues he discussed. "It was the first time I saw him up close. He was closing his eyes while speaking, as I had often seen him in the press earlier. He said he didn't have any health problem apart from the problem in his left eye which was continuously flowing down. He said doctors couldn't find a solution to the problem in his eye. He was both humoristic and serious at times, while he got angry as he put emphasis on some points during the two-hours meeting".
Buldan added the followings concerning the situation and attitude of the Kurdish leader; "Despite being subjected to isolation for the last 14 years, he has a command of all issues which he analyzed very well while evaluating both the past and the future in Turkey and the Middle East. As far as I saw from his hopeful statements and his self-confidence, the solitary confinement hasn't exercised any effect on Mr. Öcalan".
In messages posted in her Twitter feed late on Tuesday, Buldan said the BDP delegation was accompanied by two MİT officials, adding that she could not reveal the content of the meeting.
MİT officials have so far held three rounds of talks with the PKK. The most recent effort was in Oslo, where MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan headed a MİT delegation in 2010. The talks were ineffective and were interrupted in July 2011 when the PKK staged a fatal attack in Silvan,www.ekurd.net Diyarbakir.
Talks were re-launched a couple of months ago -- although this was revealed to the public only recently -- after the government determined that the jailed PKK leader still has power over the organization's supporters, as a call from him made to Kurdish prisoners who were on a collective hunger strike was enough to end the protest.
The first meeting between Öcalan and Kurdish politicians as part of the negotiations took place on Jan. 4 when Mardin independent deputy Ahmet Türk and BDP deputy Ayla Akat Ata visited İmralı. The latest visit by Kurdish lawmakers has strengthened hopes for ending the decades-long problem in the country, which claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people.
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All meetings between BDP lawmakers and Öcalan are obviously 'controlled' and officered by MIT, while talks between Öcalan and Turks are free and secret. It sounds as if MIT and Öcalan work to make accept their plan to BDP, or to find an acceptable formula for the Kurdish people. I wonder if BDP and guerrilla are working together or if Öcalan hopes to gain support of BDP against guerrilla if Qandil react against some conditions (withdrawal of Qandil, exile from Kurdistan, etc). BDP could see an advantage : how to obtrude itself on the Council of presidency, instead of staying in their subordination as they are since many years.
