ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - President Masoud Barzani’s office on Tuesday rebuked Devlet Bahceli, leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), as “chauvinistic” for criticizing the presence of Barzani’s security detail during a recent visit to southeast Turkey.

“Unfortunately, he spoke again with a chauvinistic mindset, contradicting all norms and serving nobody’s interests,” Barzani’s office said in a statement, stressing that Barzani’s security detail “was based on a protocol agreement between the relevant institutions in the Kurdistan Region and Turkey.”

On Tuesday, Bahceli criticized the presence of Kurdish forces accompanying Barzani as a “disgrace,” calling it a deliberate attack on the “dignity, prestige, historical reputation, and sovereign character of the Republic of Turkey.”

“President Barzani's visit was a step in support of the peace process, which Bahçeli claims to support. We had thought that Devlet Bahçeli had finally been guided to the right path and had turned the page on his embrace of racism and chauvinism,” Barzani’s office stated. 

"However, it seems he remains the same old gray wolf, now in sheep's clothing," it lamented.

Barzani’s office further explained that high-ranking Turkish officials visiting the Kurdistan Region are always “accompanied by Turkish special forces units without any problems.” 

President Barzani’s visit to the Cizre district of Turkey’s Kurdish province of Sirnak was to deliver remarks at the fourth International Mullah al-Jaziri Symposium. The event focused on the life, works, and ethnics of the Kurdish poet and philosopher Sheikh Ahmad al-Jaziri.

Bahceli initiated the renewed peace process between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Ankara in October last year by urging its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan to address the Turkish parliament and call on his group to disarm. In October, he suggested that the Turkish parliament should hold direct talks with Ocalan. 

President Barzani has been a key supporter of the process. During his visit on Saturday, he praised the efforts and reaffirmed his readiness to help advance the initiative.

Ocalan made a historic call from prison in February, which was subsequently followed by the PKK announcing its intention to lay down its arms and dissolve in May.

In July, dozens of PKK fighters burned their weapons in a symbolic disarmament ceremony in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province, and earlier this month, the group announced it would completely withdraw from Turkish soil.

A Turkish parliamentary committee has been established, tasked with drafting a legal framework for the Ankara-PKK peace process. The commission in late November marked their first visit to Ocalan on Imrali island, later asserting that “positive outcomes” had been reached.

Ocalan and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) have repeatedly expressed concern over the lack of concrete measures to establish a political framework ensuring the success of the peace process.

The DEM Party has been the main mediator between the PKK and the Turkish state in the recent peace process.