ISTANBUL — Turkey has moved Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan to a newly built part of the island prison where he has been incarcerated since 1999, as part of efforts to end decades of conflict, a senior Kurdish official said, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.

Source: Associated Press, via The Reflector, Nov 1, 2026

Ocalan heads the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Improving his prison conditions has been a key Kurdish demand in the push to end the 42-year conflict between the militant group and the Turkish authorities, AP said.

He has been imprisoned in a penitentiary on the island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara — which links the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea — since he was captured in 1999.

Confirmed on television, with a call to move faster

Mithat Sancar, a lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, confirmed Ocalan's relocation in an interview with Medya Haber TV on Saturday, without providing further details, AP reported. He did not confirm that the newly built section of the prison has better accommodations, though his remarks appeared to indicate that.

Sancar also called for the peace process to be sped up and said it had been on “a pause” for the last two months. Ocalan's move to the new facility, he said, “necessitates an acceleration of the (peace) process.” Kurdistan24 likewise reported Sancar's confirmation under the headline that Ocalan had moved to a new Imrali home while the peace process stalls.

Source: Kurdistan24, via Hatha Alyoum, Nov 1, 2026

1999Year Ocalan was captured and imprisoned on Imrali island
42 yearsLength of the conflict between the PKK and Turkish authorities, as described by AP
2 monthsHow long Sancar said the peace process has been on “a pause”

Sancar is among a group of DEM Party politicians who have been regularly visiting Ocalan since the militant leader called on the PKK to disband and disarm in February 2025, AP said. The PKK later announced its dissolution in May 2025, in what was described at the time as a landmark step in the latest attempt to end the conflict.

What happens next will be watched closely in Ankara and across the region: Sancar's message was that a better-housed Ocalan alone does not move the process — the lawmaker wants the talks themselves to accelerate after two months of pause. Turkey's government had not, in Sunday's reporting, publicly detailed the new arrangement on Imrali.