More than 40,000 people, including 5,500 security force members, have been killed in four decades of fighting between Turkish security forces and the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey.

Kalkan’s remarks came during an interview with the pro-Kurdish Medya Haber TV this week.

He said that while Erdogan frequently accuses the opposition of links to the PKK as part of propaganda for the presidential and parliamentary elections slated for May 14, he and figures from his ruling party were the ones who held the most meetings with the leaders of the PKK.

“Tayyip [Erdogan] and the AKP established relations with the PKK. They even went to Imrali. They arranged many meetings with leader Apo, [and] sent envoys to Qandil. … Everyone knows,” Kalkan said.

Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK, has been jailed in a high-security prison on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999.

The Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq are the stronghold of outlawed PKK militants.

Kalkan added that Erdogan's government also sent senior officials from the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), including then-deputy undersecretary and current head of MİT Hakan Fidan, to hold direct discussions with the PKK in Oslo in 2009.

Erdogan's accusations about the opposition’s alleged links to the PKK have increased since the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) announced its tacit support for Erdogan's rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Turkey’s main opposition leader and the joint candidate of an opposition bloc of six parties.

The HDP, which faces a closure case due to its alleged links to the PKK, decided last month not to field its own presidential candidate in an apparent move to avoid splitting the opposition vote.

The ruling AKP increased its crackdown on Kurds, especially after the collapse of Ankara’s settlement process with the PKK in 2015.

The settlement process, which refers to direct talks between the AKP government and Ocalan, began in 2012 and ended after two police officers were executed in southeastern Sanliurfa province in June 2015.

Erdogan was recently accused by Kilicdaroglu of “exploiting” the process solely to protect his political position and making citizens pay a heavy price for it in the foreword of a book authored by a lawmaker from his party.

Kilicdaroglu has argued that the Kurdish issue could be resolved through political and societal consensus at the Turkish parliament with a legitimate interlocutor such as the HDP – parliament’s second-largest opposition group – instead of Ocalan, who he said was an illegitimate actor.

The Kurdish issue, a term prevalent in Turkey’s public discourse, refers to the demand for equal rights by the country’s Kurdish population and their struggle for recognition.