ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan on Sunday warned against any delays to the legal process of the peace talks with Ankara, asserting that there is “no time to lose,” the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy party (DEM Party) said on Monday.

On Sunday, DEM Party’s Imrali delegation visited Ocalan on the high-security island, marking the first visit to the jailed leader in months.

DEM Party announced in a statement that during the meeting, Ocalan had stressed the need to ground all steps to implement the peace process in a legal framework, asserting that “remaining in a state of expectation only creates risk. We have no time to lose.”

The jailed leader said that he believes all actors involved in the process will act with an “understanding of historical responsibility” and that the Turkish parliament will “conduct its work with this sensitivity.”

Ocalan, who has been jailed on the secluded island for over 27 years, noted that a legal framework can form “the root cell of the democratization process,” asserting that democratization “is a vital need, and the success of the process brings us closer to this goal.”

Addressing a recent law enforcement incursion into Turkey’s main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) headquarters the day prior, Ocalan ascribed the event to the “the absence of a properly functioning democracy and democratic politics.”

In February, Ocalan declared the “second phase” of the peace process, concerned with democratic integration into Turkey’s political system, while the first phase was focused on the disarmament of PKK fighters.

Ocalan and DEM Party have repeatedly expressed concern over the lack of concrete measures to establish a political framework ensuring the success of the peace process.

Earlier in May, Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) spokesperson Zagros Hiwa told The New Region that Turkey has “suspended the process in practice,” by refusing to take concrete steps, noting that the advancing the process now depends “on the attitude of the” Turkish government.

“The ball is in their court,” Hiwa said, referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of Devlet Bahceli, who initiated the peace process.

Bahceli argued earlier in May that Ocalan’s status should be addressed, and an active role must be given to him to oversee developments in the process.

The Turkish parliament im February approved a report drafted by the committee tasked with overseeing the implementation of the process. The report called for not labeling non-violent actions and freedom of expression as “terrorism”, and for the reintegration of members who gave up their weapons back into society.

Dozens of PKK fighters burned their weapons in a symbolic disarmament ceremony in July of 1025 in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province. The group announced it would completely withdraw from Turkish soil later in November of the same year.