The İmralı delegation of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) was set to meet with the Turkish Ministry of Justice on Friday.

The meeting was postponed due to the health condition of Delegation member Sırrı Süreyya Önder, who suffered a heart attack on Tuesday evening and was rushed to the Florence Nightingale Hospital in Istanbul. Following emergency surgery, he was moved to intensive care. His condition is still described as serious and threatening, and the prognosis remains guarded. On Wednesday, his sedation period was extended by five days.

The DEM Party announced that, “The meeting between the Minister of Justice and the İmralı Delegation on Friday has been postponed due to the health condition of Sırrı Süreyya Önder and the fact that all executives of our party are in the hospital. We will share the new appointment date next week when it becomes clear.”

The delegation that will exchange views with the ministry consists of the MPs Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, as well as the parliamentary faction leaders in parliament, Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit and Sezai Temelli. Buldan and Önder had met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last week.

The upcoming meeting is seen as the next important step in the context of a potentially new developing dialogue process around the Kurdish question and the situation on the prison island of İmralı, where Abdullah Öcalan has been held as a political hostage for over two decades. In February, the founder of the PKK once again called for peace and a just solution to the Kurdish question in order to pave the way for the democratization of the country.

Observers see the meeting with the Ministry of Justice as a possible signal for initial concrete steps towards legal reforms and a possible relaxation in the treatment of political prisoners. The DEM Party has repeatedly emphasized the necessity of legal adjustments and a return to democratic approaches to resolving the country's profound political conflicts.