The Turkish parliament’s peace commission, tasked with the PKK Turkey talks, is set to meet the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan today in a historic prison visit. The commission approved the trip on Friday.

Context: The delegation will include one representative each from the AKP, the MHP, and the pro Kurdish DEM Party. It was originally planned as a five member team, but two parties will not take part. The main opposition CHP walked out of Friday’s vote after deciding against the visit. The New Path bloc, Yeni Yol, which was also expected to hold a seat on the delegation, also opted out. Yeni Yol argued instead for a virtual session in which all commission members could hear Ocalan, rather than a prison visit to Imrali. Yeni Yol is a joint parliamentary group bringing together the Islamist Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) and two breakaway conservative parties led by former AKP figures, DEVA under Ali Babacan and Gelecek under Ahmet Davutoglu. The meeting’s contents have been classified as top secret and will remain undisclosed for 10 days.

Analysis: The proposal to visit Ocalan in person has exposed one of the sharpest public rifts in years between the ruling AKP and its ally, the MHP. The AKP initially hesitated, wary of public backlash. But MHP leader Devlet Bahceli’s blunt challenge that he would go himself if the commission failed to act, followed by his meeting with President Erdogan, appears to have pushed the delegation forward.

The controversy ran deep enough that even actors closer to the AKP MHP camp, such as Yeniden Refah (New Welfare Party, YRP), rejected the idea. YRP’s leader, from an ultraconservative Millî Görüş offshoot, went further and sarcastically urged Bahceli to go on his own. Tensions rose further with the last minute decision by CHP and Yeni Yol not just to vote no, but to boycott the delegation entirely.

CHP’s move is clearly political, aimed at strengthening its hand against the AKP in public opinion. But it may also have the unintended effect of nudging the DEM Party closer to the AKP MHP camp, at a moment when DEM is increasingly positioned as a pivotal actor that could tilt the balance between Turkey’s two main political blocs. Either way, the visit is symbolically significant and further entrenches Ocalan’s status as a recognized leading figure in the Kurdish movement in Turkey and beyond.