ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the political umbrella group of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), on Tuesday affirmed their commitment to the recent message of the party’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, pledging that his directives will guide their struggle in the new year.

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) on Sunday announced that Ocalan has expressed his willingness to take the necessary steps to find a permanent solution for the Kurdish issue and “make the call,” following a meeting with the PKK founder at Imrali prison.

“Despite the darkness imposed, Leader Apo [Ocalan], with a sense of responsibility, once again displayed his positive views and highlighted solutions and views that broaden the horizons of thought,” read a statement from the co-chairmanship of the KCK Executive Council on Tuesday.

The KCK said that Ocalan’s message gives them hope with the arrival of the new year, stressing their commitment to implementing his directives.

“Our leadership’s views in the last days of 2024 will be a manifesto and will guide our struggle in the new year,” the statement added.

The DEM Party delegation’s meeting with Ocalan comes amid a shift in Ankara’s stance of prohibiting contact with the PKK founder.

During a speech to his party’s bloc in the parliament in October, Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli proposed allowing Ocalan to appear before the legislature and declare the dissolution of the PKK.

“With the belief that in the new year Leader Apo will be freed, the Kurdish issue will be solved, Turkey and the region will become democratic, and peace and stability will prevail in our region and the whole world, we wish Leader Apo, all our friends, and women and toilers who are fighting for freedom, a Happy New Year,” the KCK statement added.

In 2013, the Turkish government, led by then-prime minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, entered a peace process with the PKK aimed at ending the decades of conflict and bloodshed. The truce was short-lived and collapsed in July 2015, leading to violent clashes in Turkey’s southeastern Kurdish areas.

Ocalan has been serving a life sentence at Imrali prison, a small but high-security facility on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara, since February 1999.

The PKK is an armed group that has fought for increased Kurdish rights in Turkey for decades. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara.