Turkey moves jailed PKK leader Ocalan to a new section of Imrali island prison

Relocation inside the prison

Turkey has moved Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), to a newly built section of the Imrali island prison in the Marmara Sea, where he has been held since his capture in 1999. Mithat Sancar, a lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, confirmed the relocation in an interview with Medya Haber TV on Saturday, 31 October, but gave no further details. Sancar did not say whether the new section offers better accommodation, although his remarks suggested that it does. Better prison conditions for Ocalan have been a central Kurdish demand in the effort to end a conflict that has lasted 42 years.

Doubts from the DEM Party

Pervin Buldan, another DEM lawmaker, said Ocalan had announced the move and stressed that the new place is part of the prison rather than outside it. She argued that a change of location alone does not give him a new status. DEM accused the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of dragging its feet on the process. Sancar, who visits Ocalan regularly with other DEM politicians, called for the process to be accelerated and said the move made that acceleration necessary. He also said Ocalan must coordinate the peace negotiations, and he directed his criticism at Ankara:

“The process cannot proceed with unilateral expectations and demands”

Sancar said the government needs to step back from what he described as an insistent and rigid position.

Stalled talks and unmet demands

Sancar said the process had been on pause for the last two months and that dates announced earlier had not materialised. Buldan said Ocalan had repeatedly asked to meet women's organisations, journalists and academics, but two years on only political delegations, including the DEM team, had made the trip to Imrali. She said that a bare change of cell location does not address that demand. Buldan also said the process could move forward only if concrete steps were taken quickly.

Background to the peace push

Ocalan called on the PKK to disband and disarm in February 2025. Three months later the group announced it would lay down its arms and end hostilities. In August, the Turkish parliament approved legislation offering a conditional pardon to thousands of PKK fighters, and Erdogan signed it into law. Four sub-commissions have been set up to oversee the dissolution of the PKK, and Ocalan is expected to take part in work on disarmament, although the law does not say what will happen to him. Ocalan, now 77, is serving a life sentence on the island south of Istanbul. Turkey, the United States and the European Union designate the PKK as a terrorist organisation, and the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984, according to Ankara some 50,000 people.