ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Part) hailed on Friday the outcome of the flurry of their meetings with political parties across the Turkish political spectrum as “promisingly positive" after visiting jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdulla Ocalan in Imrali on December 28, saying they will visit him once again “as soon as possible.”

"We would like to extend our deepest respect and gratitude to all political parties and their distinguished leaders. They have welcomed us warmly, shared invaluable insights and suggestions, and communicated their concerns and criticisms in a highly constructive manner,” the DEM Party said in a detailed statement on Friday. "Almost all the meetings were sincere and promisingly positive.”

"With all our good impressions, we will pay a visit to Mr. Ocalan as soon as possible and spare no effort for the process to reach peace through healthy methods,” the DEM Party added.

During a speech to his party’s bloc in the parliament in October, Devlet Bahceli, head of the far-right Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), proposed allowing Ocalan to appear before the legislature and declare the dissolution of the PKK, an initiative immediately endorsed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Turkish political landscape. 

This initiative led to the DEM Party MPs Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder being granted the rare permission to meet with Ocalan at Imrali prison in December amid a shift in Ankara’s stance of prohibiting contact with the PKK founder.

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 DEP Party stated that their discussions with all political parties “focused on the intent and commitment to positively address the Kurdish issue in a lasting way.”

"The distinguished leaders and their delegations declared their support for the peace process in principle. However, there were also concerns and suggestions on various issues. These are gathered around the transparency of the process and its implementation and execution,” at Turkey’s parliament. 

MHP leader Bahceli on Tuesday said that the next meeting with jailed Ocalan must end in the dissolution of the PKK.

“At the end of the second meeting to be held between the DEM delegation and İmrali, it must be declared without any conditions that the organizational existence of the PKK has ended, that no result could be achieved through terrorism,” Bahceli said at a press conference following his party’s parliamentary group meeting.

In 2013, the Turkish government, led by then-prime minister and current President 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.

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.