ANKARA - Emphasizing that the isolation of PKK Leader Öcalan directly affects the future of Turkey, lawyer Özgür Faik Erol stated: “İmralı Island is like a time machine, it shows the  future of Türkiye.”

 

The international conspiracy, which started with PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan's departure from Syria on October 9, 1998, and continued when he was brought to Turkey on February 15, 1999, has entered its 26th year. Abdullah Öcalan, who left the Middle East and opened up to the world in order to bring the Kurdish issue to a democratic basis, was declared "persona non grata" by ignoring international law, and after a "battue" lasting 130 days, he was brought to Turkey, where he was wanted with the death penalty. After ignoring international law, Abdullah Öcalan has been held in severe isolation conditions in İmralı Type F High Security Prison for 25 years.

 

Abdullah Öcalan, whose family and lawyer visits were blocked, was able to benefit from his right to telephone only twice in 25 years. There has been no news from Abdullah Öcalan, whose all communication rights have been blocked and whose requests for comments have been blocked with systematic "disciplinary" penalties for 31 months.

 

Stating that it is not known which law and rules İmralı Prison is subject to, Özgür Faik Erol, one of the lawyers of Asrın Law Firm, evaluated the İmralı isolation and "legal" system.

 

UNCERTAINTY POLICY IN IMRALI

 

Erol said that as the state systematically continues its policy of uncertainty in İmralı Prison, the Kurds are also wanted to be left in limbo and without status, and added: "Undoubtedly, Mr. Öcalan is the primary addressee of the state of uncertainty. In some of his meetings with his lawyers, he expressed the conditions in which he was there in various ways. But one of the most striking expressions was, 'I am here in a narrow corridor.' It was important for him to express himself as "I can neither turn left nor right in a congested corridor." Being kept in this narrow corridor is a phrase established in human rights literature. It has also been condemned in various cases and always as a regime of ill-treatment. I think that this state of uncertainty in Imrali has turned into a status and hold that Turkey has politically assigned to the Kurds, starting with Mr. Öcalan and continuing. Essentially, it is a situation where the status of the Kurds in Imrali and as a whole is kept in limbo. This situation has become a dominant and established form of politics in recent years. Today, we can see that a policy of keeping such a state of uncertainty has been developed not only for the Kurds in Turkey, but also for the Kurds throughout the Middle East."

 

THE CLEAR ATTITUDE OF ÖCALAN

 

Erol stated that Abdullah Öcalan is making serious efforts to solve the Kurdish issue through democratic methods within the "narrow corridor" and said: "This is undoubtedly the case of the Kurds, who have demanded their own collective rights and been able to implement them, especially in the last 50 years, and who have expressed this more strongly. A situation related to mass mobilization. Here is a situation related to the role played by Mr. Öcalan and the position he occupies. These insistences, the state of keeping the Kurds in a fragmented state of uncertainty since Lausanne and Sykes-Picot, are related to the Kurds' suggestions and thoughts about the conditions and status under which they can live together with the societies they live in, in the countries they live in, and their mobilizations and demands to realize this. Especially in Turkey's conditions, in the last 10 years, Mr. Öcalan's power and role in the solution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey has become more evident and revealed. Since the day he was held in Imrali, he has persistently and clearly been in an attitude of inviting the state to the negotiation process and dialogue to solve the Kurdish problem through dialogue. He made his own position clear in this sense.”

 

'PARADIGMA BECAME HOPE FOR PEOPLES'

 

Erol underlined that Abdullah Öcalan's paradigm is a hope not only for the Kurds but also for all the people living in the Middle East, and said: "For this reason, it is Öcalan's ideas that are isolated." Recalling Abdullah Öcalan's statement in his meetings with his lawyers in 2019, "If they give me a chance, I can solve it in a week," Erol continued: "This is a role, a position. Between 2013 and 2015, we witnessed this more fleshed out and transformed into dialogue. A process called the Solution Process developed. The Imrali isolation was also tightened with the termination of this process in 2015. There is a process of turning the emerging power and will into uncertainty here. This is not just about the solution process because the suggestions made by Mr. Öcalan regarding the solution of the Kurdish issue does not only concern the Turks and Kurds and other dynamics in Turkey. They are ideas about how the remaining Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Persians and the communities as a whole, which are in conflict with each other today, will live together democratically in the Middle East."

 

'İMRALI SHOWS THE FUTURE OF TURKİYE'

 

Drawing attention that the isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan has a direct impact on Turkey's future, Erol said: "Everyone who wants to live under democratic conditions should oppose the isolation. If you want to see under what conditions you can live in Turkey tomorrow, I recommend you look at İmralı today. It's kind of like a time machine. It shows the future of Türkiye in advance because we know this, the implementation that was implemented only in Imrali 10 years ago has been implemented gradually. There is such a state mind, there is such a state memory. Therefore, every person, intellectual, writer, artist and lawyer who wants to live under democratic conditions in this country should see this reality, regardless of their ethnic identity or religious belief. The aim is to understand how this system established in İmralı is intertwined with the deadlock of the Kurdish issue, and accordingly, a solution in one is only possible by eliminating the deadlock in the other. It should be stated clearly and boldly that this is a process that needs to go together."

 

MA / Selman Güzelyüz - Hakan Yalçın