KDP-linked site claims SDG commander Mazlum Abdi met Öcalan on Imrali; Ankara silent
A KDP-linked Iraqi Kurdistan website, Darka Mazi, has reported that Syrian Democratic Forces commander Mazlum Abdi and SDG external-relations head Ilham Ahmed were secretly taken to Imrali island prison in March through "a channel prepared by Turkey" to meet imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan, three days after an earlier 9 May claim that PKK leaders Sabri Ok and Bese Hozat had been brought there in June 2025 before that year's symbolic weapon-burning ceremony in Sulaymaniyah. As of 17 May, neither the Presidency's Disinformation Centre, the Justice Ministry nor MİT — which is coordinating the "Terror-Free Turkey" process under chief İbrahim Kalın — has issued a formal denial. The unverified claims have opened debate inside the AK Parti base over whether Parliament should pass process legislation before the PKK disarms, with columnist Fatih Altaylı arguing such contacts are ordinary statecraft.
The KDP-linked Iraqi Kurdistan website Darka Mazi reported on 12 May that the head of the PKK's Syrian organisation, Mazlum Abdi — real name Ferhat Abdi Şahin — and SDG external-relations chief İlham Ahmed had been taken to İmralı island prison in March 2026 through "a channel prepared by Turkey" to meet PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan. The 12 May post followed a 9 May Darka Mazi story claiming PKK administrators Sabri Ok and Bese Hozat — the org-name of Hülya Oran — had been secretly taken to İmralı in June 2025; according to that earlier account, Oran subsequently led a symbolic weapon-burning ceremony near Sulaymaniyah on 11 July, shortly after the meeting.
According to the Darka Mazi account, Öcalan scolded the SDG figures for being instrumentalised in plans for an "Israel-controlled" Kurdish state outside his command, and asked them to work on the "Terror-Free Turkey" project to make amends. The site argued that recent remarks by Mazlum Abdi to Al Arabiya, in which he said he could soon meet Öcalan on İmralı, were intended to prepare public opinion for a meeting that had already taken place.
The claims have three institutional addressees: the Presidency, where Recep Tayyip Erdoğan heads the executive; the Justice Ministry, which administers the prison system (held by Yılmaz Tunç at the time of the alleged June 2025 meeting and Akın Gürlek in March 2026); and MİT, the intelligence service under İbrahim Kalın, which is coordinating the Terror-Free Turkey process. As of the morning of 17 May, no statement had come from the Presidential Communications Directorate's Disinformation Centre, the Justice Ministry or MİT; only unofficial "not true" murmurs have circulated, with no formal denial.
Two debates have opened in Turkish politics on the assumption — neither confirmed nor denied — that the meetings happened. The first asks why wanted figures were not arrested but brought into contact with Öcalan; columnist Fatih Altaylı wrote that "states do these things — what is unusual about it?" The second runs through both government and opposition ranks: in the AK Parti base in particular, voices have asked whether Parliament should pass the process legislation before the PKK actually lays down arms, a sequencing complaint amplified by the unverified İmralı reports.
The claims sit inside a dense recent timeline. On 29 January the SDG signed an integration agreement with the Syrian government in Damascus, and a 14 April meeting saw Mazlum Abdi and Ahmed received in Damascus by transitional president Ahmed al-Shara'a and foreign minister Hasan Şeybani, beginning the SDG's absorption into the Syrian army. The Turkish Parliament published its "Terror-Free Turkey" report on 18 February, and the DEM Party delegation met Öcalan at İmralı on 16 February and again on 27 March. On 18 March, US ambassador to Ankara Tom Barrack said Washington "admired" Turkey's handling of the process and called for Kurds to integrate into the four states in which they live, naming Erdoğan, foreign minister Hakan Fidan and Kalın.
Israeli and Iranian dimensions intersected in mid-April. On 17 April Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yisrael Katz issued statements threatening Turkey; the same week the US plan to use armed Kurdish groups as ground force against Iran was shelved, and President Donald Trump said publicly that "we gave the Kurds weapons but they didn't use them". Inside Turkey on 5 May the PKK leadership — signing as the "Apocu Movement" rather than the PKK itself — requested formal "status" for Öcalan, and MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli proposed naming him "Peace and Politicisation Coordinator", a status DEM endorsed.
The Darka Mazi reports landed during a week of high-level Turkish-Kurdish diplomacy. Erdoğan met Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government prime minister Masrour Barzani in Istanbul on 9 May — the same day the first Darka Mazi story appeared — and on 16 May, returning from Kazakhstan, Erdoğan told reporters the Cumhur Alliance "will not give pleasure to those who do not want Terror-Free Turkey to succeed". The journalists travelling with him did not, according to the Communications Directorate's published Q&A, raise the İmralı meeting claims.