Secretariat for Öcalan to start working soon, HDP says

A secretariat will soon be provided for the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to help in advancing the stalled peace process, a leading deputy of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has announced.

Five or six months could be enough to complete the process, including the laying down of arms by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), HDP Istanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder said, while cautioning that the living conditions of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, a critical figure in the process, must be improved.

Speaking in an interview with CNNTürk news channel late on Oct. 22, Önder said a secretariat for Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara, will be formed while a new monitoring team will be delegated by the Undersecretariat of Public Order and Security.

“His conditions have not changed. We have held more than 20 meetings and we held all of them in the same place. He is staying in a place that is at most 15 square meters,” Önder said.

Along with the HDP’s deputy parliamentary group chairs, İdris Baluken and Pervin Buldan, Önder is a frequent visitor of Öcalan as part of the government-led peace process aimed at ending the three-decade long conflict between the PKK and Turkey’s security forces.

Having a secretariat has long been one of Öcalan’s main demands.

“It must change. A person is trying to build peace and he is doing this despite all of these limited conditions,” Önder said when asked whether there would be a change in Öcalan’s conditions.

Baluken and Buldan are among figures that will be part of the secretariat working on nine main themes such as security, education, women and truth and...