ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party's delegation which visited Abdullah Ocalan at Imrali prison arrived in the Kurdistan Region on Saturday, ahead of meetings with top Kurdish officials to discuss the findings of their audience with the jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader.

Pervin Buldan, delegation member and DEM Party MP, told The New Region on Saturday that they “will not have any meetings tonight, but meetings will start tomorrow.”

The New Region understands that the delegation will meet with Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) President Masoud Barzani, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, and Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani before they head to Sulaimani a day after to meet with Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani and Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Qubad Talabani.

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

Devlet Bahceli, head of the far-right Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), proposed in October 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. 

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.

Bahceli’s 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.

Following the DEM party delegation’s meetings with Ocalan, Tuncer Bakirhan, a Kurdish lawmaker in the Turkish parliament revealed early February that Ocalan is set to “make a historic call” for a permanent solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey.

DEM Party co-leader and MP Tulay Hatimogullari on Tuesday revealed that Ocalan’s anticipated “historic call” can take place “within this month,” adding that they expect the call to emphasize solving the Kurdish issue “through law and politics.”

Hatimogullari added that “the call” may not happen on February 15, the day of Ocalan’s capture by Turkish forces in Kenya's Nairobi, citing delivering the input of the Kurdistan Region meetings to Ocalan as the reason.

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.