Turkey’s parliamentary peace process commission voted today to conduct a historic in-person visit to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, despite the main opposition party’s refusal to participate. The motion passed with 32 votes in favor, 3 against, and 2 abstentions.

Context: Turkey’s peace-process parliamentary commission has 51 members. AK Parti holds 22 seats, CHP 11, DEM Parti 5, MHP 4, and the Yeni Yol bloc 3. İYİ Parti has no representation after boycotting, and its three seats were removed and redistributed. Six smaller parties each hold one seat: HÜDA PAR (Free Cause Party), a Kurdish-rooted Sunni Islamist and socially conservative party; Yeniden Refah (New Welfare Party, YRP), an ultraconservative Islamist Millî Görüş offshoot; TİP (Workers’ Party of Turkey), a socialist/communist party on the Marxist left; EMEP (Labour Party), a Marxist-Leninist communist far-left party; DSP (Democratic Left Party), a centre-left social-democratic party; and DP (Democrat Party), a centre-right liberal-conservative party.

The commission’s first open vote, held today, was on whether a delegation should visit Abdullah Öcalan in prison on İmralı in person. The motion passed with 32 votes in favor, 3 against, and 2 abstentions, clearing the contested 60 percent threshold of 31 votes.

The “yes” votes came from AK Parti, MHP, DEM Parti, TİP, and EMEP, with AK Parti delivering 21 yes votes because one of its members was absent, while all MHP and DEM members voted yes and TİP and EMEP each supported the motion through their single representatives.

The three “no” votes were cast by HÜDA PAR, DP, and DSP. Yeni Yol recorded two abstentions with one member absent; Yeni Yol is a joint parliamentary group formed by the Islamist-leaning Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) together with two breakaway conservative parties led by former AKP figures, DEVA (Ali Babacan) and Gelecek (Ahmet Davutoğlu).

CHP’s 11 members did not take part in the vote, having walked out and announced in advance that they would neither support the visit nor send anyone to a delegation if it passed.

After the vote, AK Parti, MHP, DEM Parti, and Yeni Yol have all indicated they will be represented in the delegation and are expected to submit names formally. TİP and EMEP backed the visit and have signaled openness to joining if the format expands beyond the core parliamentary groups.

CHP has ruled out participation, while HÜDA PAR, DP, and DSP oppose the visit and will not take part. Yeniden Refah has not declared any plan to join, leaving it effectively outside the delegation.