ROME, Italy - Leaders from the Kurdistan Region welcomed on Thursday Abdullah Ocalan’s landmark call for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down arms and be dissolved. 

Ocalan, 75,  jailed leader and founder of the PKK on Thursday called on his party to lay down arms against the Turkish state and dissolve itself in a historic declaration from Imrali Prison, where he has been held for 26 years.

The call is aimed at ending the decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish group that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

"The call made by Mr. Devlet Bahceli, along with the will expressed by Mr. President, and the positive responses from the other political parties towards the known call, has created an environment in which I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” Ocalan calls in an address delivered by pro-Kurdish DEM Party after they met him earlier today, for the third time in three months to resume the peace process in Turkey.

Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani welcomed the historic call.

“I welcome and support any attempt for a peaceful solution in the region,” PM Barzani said. “The Kurdistan Region has always been an important factor for peace in the region, and we express our readiness for any role and assistance for the success of the peace process in Turkey.”

President of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani also welcomed Ocalan’s message.

“We warmly welcome Mr. Ocalan’s message and his call for the laydown of arms and dissolution of the PKK,” Barzani said, calling on the PKK to “abide by and obey the message.”

President Masoud Barzani of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (PKK), for his part, commended Ocalan’s call, hoping it would mark "the beginning of the peace process to achieve an outcome that is in the interest of all sides.”

“We are reaffirming our unwavering stance concerning the peace process in Turkey. We fully support the peace process. We consider peace as the only right way to resolve issues,” the KDP leader added. 

The Kurdistan Region’s leadership, notably President Masoud Barzani, is a pivotal powerbroker in Kurdish affairs. 

Nearly two weeks ago, a DEM Party delegation visited the Kurdistan Region to discuss the details of the ongoing peace talks in Turkey and delivered Ocalan’s “greetings” to the leaders of the Kurdistan Region. 

Bafel Talabani, the leader of the other ruling Kurdish party - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), described the message as a “responsible and necessary call at this stage to unite the Kurds and resolve issues through peaceful dialogue.”

Headquartered in the Kurdistan Region’s Mount Qandil, 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, Europe, and the US. 

In a major move, 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. 

This initiative led to the DEM Party MPs Sirri Sureyya Onder and Parvin Buldan being granted the rare permission to meet with Ocalan at Imrali prison 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.

"There is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realization of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way,” Ocalan said in his landmark call for peace.

"The language of the epoch of peace and democratic society needs to be developed in accordance with this reality,” the jailed leader added. 

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.