A new round of briefings in Ankara suggests that the next moves in the Turkey–PKK peace track are converging around two linked steps: a staged return to Turkey of PKK members who are the children of the so-called Diyarbakır Mothers, and a visit by the Turkish Parliament’s peace-process commission to Abdullah Öcalan, who is jailed on İmralı Island near Istanbul.

Context: Diyarbakır Mothers are a group of mainly Kurdish mothers and other relatives whose children they say were deceived or abducted by the PKK. Since 3 September 2019 they have been staging a continuous sit-in, which has received extensive pro-government media coverage. The families’ grievances have been heavily politicised and instrumentalised by the AKP and its MHP allies as part of their campaign against the pro-Kurdish HDP. According to reports, around 400 PKK members are the children of families involved in the Diyarbakır Mothers protest.

After the new round of the peace process began in October 2024, Öcalan in February 2025 called on the PKK to lay down arms, convene a congress and dissolve itself. In April the PKK held that congress and decided to dissolve, and in another symbolic gesture a group of PKK militants burned their weapons to demonstrate intent. The more important recent steps, however, have been operational rather than symbolic: the PKK has withdrawn fully from inside Turkey and vacated its caves and hideouts in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq near the Turkish border.

Analysis: Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Turkey’s nationalist MHP, has been the most visible advocate of this new round of talks with the PKK. He has repeatedly called on the parliamentary commission created as part of the peace-process architecture to meet Öcalan in person in his prison on İmralı. This initially faced resistance from the AKP and President Erdoğan, who feared a domestic backlash. While visiting Öcalan, who has in practice been leading the peace talks on the PKK’s behalf, might look like a natural step in process terms, in Turkish politics it amounts to an earthquake: breaking one of the system’s deepest taboos.

Since the start of the new process, Bahçeli has set himself up as the one willing to break those taboos, framing his stance as a sacrifice he is prepared to make for the long-term benefit of the Turkish state. His calls to visit Öcalan, and his support for other demands linked to the peace track, have nonetheless generated tensions with the AKP, his ally since 2016. Reports suggest that AKP reluctance to back Bahçeli’s proposal for a commission visit to İmralı created friction within the alliance. After Erdoğan’s recent visit to Bahçeli, however, Erdoğan appears to have dropped his objection to an İmralı visit, as reported by pro-government outlets such as Sabah and Hürriyet.

According to sources cited by the independent outlet T24, to soften the taboo around visiting Öcalan the AKP has floated the idea that the PKK should first return the children of families involved in the Diyarbakır Mothers protest. The thinking is that such a highly symbolic, family-centred move could unlock momentum on several fronts at once, including a formal İmralı visit by the commission. In other words, the Diyarbakır Mothers file is being framed in Ankara as a confidence-building measure: a visible humanitarian gesture that can be presented to Turkish society both as a victory for a “terror-free Turkey” and as a response to a long-running, state-backed social movement.

For now, most of the CHP, the main opposition party, appears to oppose a visit to Öcalan. As the CHP is the AKP’s principal rival, this reinforces caution within the AKP leadership, where many MPs argue that the “social ground” for an İmralı visit is not yet ready and that the party grassroots remain uneasy. For decades, mainstream Turkish media have relentlessly labelled Öcalan a “child killer”; in that context, the return of the Diyarbakır Mothers’ children is seen in Ankara as a way to soften his image, or at least to shift the frame from “terrorist leader” to someone whose decisions can bring children home. At the same time, because no legal steps have yet been passed, it remains unclear how these individuals, as former PKK militants, could return without facing legal consequences.

Within this logic, a carefully sequenced return of the Diyarbakır Mothers’ children serves several functions at once. It offers a human-centred, victim-focused justification for further steps, rather than jumping straight to overt political bargaining. It allows the government to present the process as protecting families and rescuing children from the PKK, not appeasing the organisation. And it gives Öcalan and the PKK side a chance to show goodwill in a way that is highly visible but framed as humanitarian rather than political.

At the same time, the emerging plan shows that, despite progress, serious hurdles remain, above all public opinion. If the taboo on visiting Öcalan is broken, it would mark a significant step toward normalising the return of PKK militants and clearing the way for the final phase: legislation in Parliament. That legislation is expected to focus narrowly on the PKK rather than broader Kurdish cultural reforms, and to take the form of a package tailored to a defunct organisation. The core of that package would be a “Transitional Law,” followed by “Integration Laws” that define the legal framework for demobilisation, reintegration and lawful political participation.