Erdogan holds first meeting with pro-Kurdish politicians amid peace efforts

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds a first meeting with pro-Kurdish politicians who are working to bring an end to the 40-year conflict between Turkey and Kurdish militants.

Erdogan meets Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, parliamentary deputies for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM Party, at the presidential palace in Ankara.

“It was a very positive meeting, it went well. We are much more hopeful,” Onder says. Prior to the meeting, Onder said they would present the current state of peace talks to Erdogan, adding that they believed the pace of negotiations would increase.

Also present at the 1½ hour meeting were intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin and Efkan Ala, deputy chairperson of Erdogan’s party.

Buldan and Onder have been among those to visit the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in a bid to build a framework to end fighting that has caused tens of thousands of deaths.

Abdullah Ocalan, whose PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and most Western states, called for the group to disband and disarm in late February. Days later, the PKK announced a ceasefire.

The PKK appealed for Ocalan to be released from the island prison where he has been held since 1999 to “personally direct and execute” a party congress that would lead to the group’s dissolution.