ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan’s historic remark will happen on Thursday and crowds from several predominantly Kurdish provinces will watch the announcement on big screens, a well informed source tells The New Region.

The source said that the People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party will deliver Ocalan’s address in a press conference following their meeting with him in Imrali prison.

DEM Party on Wednesday invited people to attend a live screening of the DEM Party presser on Thursday in the predominantly Kurdish provinces of Diyarbekir and Van. The presser itself will take place in Istanbul.

The DEM Party delegation is set to visit Imrali prison on Thursday for a third round of talks with Ocalan, this time including DEM Party Co-leaders Tuncer Bakirhan and Tulay Hatimogullari, a source from the party told The New Region.

The New Region understands that the call will be in written format, set to be read by either Ocalan’s lawyer or an Imrali delegation member in the presence of all DEM Party MPs.

A source earlier on Wednesday told The New Region that Ocalan’s “historic call” will be delivered on Friday, however, a member of the party later said that the address has been moved forward due to the necessity of the situation.

Ocalan’s call and the delegation’s third visit to the Imrali prison come less than two weeks after the Imrali delegation visited the Kurdistan Region earlier in February to seek Kurdish officials' suggestions and advice on the matter to be taken back to the jailed PKK chief.

A proposal to allow Ocalan to appear before the legislature and declare the dissolution of the PKK was put forward in October by Devlet Bahceli, head of the far-right Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The initiative was 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 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.