The Turkish government is still committed to making peace with the Kurdish insurgent movement, the PKK. That was the message reportedly given by the head of Turkey’s national intelligence organisation, Hakan Fidan, in late August, when he met PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in his island prison.
On 8 September, Öcalan stepped up the pressure, saying ‘No discourse that is not transformed into concrete steps will represent a practical response [in] the dialogue process’. He called for the release of sick PKK-related prisoners.