Mohammed Ocalan was allowed to visit his brother on Saturday at the remote Imrali Island prison in the Marmara Sea, where he has been incarcerated since 1999.
News of the visit was confirmed by his nephew Omar Ocalan and Parvin Buldan, chair of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which has previously mediated between the PKK and the Turkish state.
Mohammed Ocalan said his brother is in good health.
The Turkish state ruled in September 2016 that Ocalan would no longer be allowed to receive visitors – including family members.
His lawyers have not been allowed to meet the PKK leader since July 2011. This is despite 768 requests to see their client.
Ocalan founded the PKK in the 1980s, leading an armed uprising against the Turkish state to achieve greater Kurdish political and cultural rights. Turkish spies captured him in Nairobi with CIA assistance.
His struggle is underpinned by the leftist ideology of democratic confederalism, which calls for greater federal devolution of power. His ideas have influenced Kurdish opposition groups in Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
It is unclear why the Turkish state has chosen now to allow the family visit, as its rhetoric against the PKK has become increasingly threatening and its cross-border operations in northern Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have intensified.
US President Donald Trump announced in December the imminent withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops stationed in northern Syria, where they have been supporting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIS.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which makes up the backbone of the SDF, fears Turkey will attack them once US forces withdraw.
Ankara has repeatedly said it intends to march east of the Euphrates River and crush the YPG, which it views as an extension of the PKK.
Turkey has also continued to launch airstrikes and shell areas of the northern Kurdistan Region of Iraq and demanded the governments of Erbil and Baghdad force the PKK to withdraw from its mountain hideouts in Qandil.
