ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Turkey’s Pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) co-leader and MP Tulay Hatimogullari on Tuesday said that the anticipated “historic call” of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), can take place “within this month,” adding that they expect the call to emphasize solving the Kurdish issue “through law and politics.”

“We estimate that such a historic call could take place this month,” Hatimogullari told reporters during a press conference following the party’s parliamentary bloc meeting on Tuesday.

The party believes that Ocalan’s call will stress that the Kurdish issue “cannot be resolved through the conflict and violence that has carried on until this day, and that the process should be carried through law and politics,” Hatimogullari added.

Tuncer Bakirhan, a Kurdish lawmaker in the Turkish parliament revealed last week that Ocalan is set to “make a historic call” for a permanent solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey.

In a major development, Devlet Bahceli, head of the far-right Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), in October 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.

A DEM Party delegation was accordingly granted the rare permission to meet with Ocalan at Imrali prison twice in December and January, amid a shift in Ankara’s stance of prohibiting contact with the PKK founder.

To discuss the outcome of their two meetings with Ocalan and ongoing efforts to resume peace talks in Turkey, a top DEM Party delegation is set visit the Kurdistan Region on Sunday and meet with top Kurdish officials and leaders, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) President Masoud Barzani.

“The opinions, suggestions, and thoughts of the relevant people regarding the process will be taken and then conveyed to Mr. Ocalan,” the DEM Party said of their planned meetings in the Kurdistan Region. 

Hatimogullari cited Ocalan as saying that “the perception of the state that sees Kurds as a threat must be eliminated… the terrorism bracket opened on Kurdish identity is the most important obstacle to the democratization of Turkey.”

Without the closure of this bracket “it is not possible for Turkey to become truly free and democratically strong,” claimed the DEM Party lawmaker.

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.

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.

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