Ocalan angered by phone call with family, wants face-to-face meetings: brother

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has told his family that speaking with him on the phone is “wrong” and “illegal,” requesting face-to-face meetings, his elder brother told Rudaw on Friday. 

After nearly a year of no contact, Ocalan spoke on the phone with brother Mehmet on Thursday. This followed recent rumours that Ocalan had died in jail. 

“The phone call was very short. It lasted for four to five minutes,” Mehmet told Rudaw’s Hawraz Gulpy via phone late Friday.  
Mehmet spoke with his brother from Sanliurfa (Riha) prosecutor’s office. 

“The President [Ocalan] asked, ‘How did you get here? Who brought you? Who asked you to come?’ I told him that I had come with a lawyer and Omer [Mehmet’s son] upon the invitation of the [prison] manager,” Mehmet told Rudaw. 

“He said ‘what you and the state are doing is not legal or right' … he said that the meetings should be face-to-face.”

Ocalan formed the PKK in 1978 and began its armed struggle against the Turkish state in 1984. Ankara considers it a terrorist organization and has conducted military operations against the group at home and abroad.

The PKK leader was imprisoned following his arrest in Nairobi in 1999. He was tracked down in the Kenyan capital after being expelled from Syria, where he was based from 1979 to 1998.  

The leader is rarely granted meetings with his lawyers or family. His last face-to-face meeting with Mehmet was on March 3, 2020 following reports of a fire near the prison in which he is held.

Ocalan’s previous contact with Mehmet was via phone on April 27, 2020. 

Asrin Law Office, which represents Ocalan, said on Thursday that its lawyers have not been able to meet the PKK leader since August 7, 2019.

“We applied every single day for a face-to-face conversation, which is a legal right,” it said on Twitter.