ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) President Masoud Barzani said on Friday that he hopes jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abullah Ocalan is released soon. His message, delivered through a representative at a Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir (Amed), southeast Turkey, comes amid progress in peace negotiations between the Turkish state and the PKK.
“On the national holiday of Newroz, we proudly emphasize the culture of coexistence and the peaceful message of the people of Kurdistan. From this perspective, we support the peace process and resolution in Turkey. We hope that Mr Abdullah Ocalan is released soon, and we consider peace as the only right way to overcome problems,” Barzani said in the message read by senior KDP member Sarbast Lazgin to a crowd of thousands gathered to celebrate Newroz in an iconic Diyarbakir park.
Kurds are hopeful that a renewed peace effort will end four decades of conflict.
A month earlier, Ocalan called on the PKK to disarm and disband, and instead take the struggle for Kurdish rights into the political sphere. His historic call followed meetings between him and a delegation from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party).
DEM Party has conveyed Ocalan’s message to Turkish parties and Kurdistan Region officials and political leaders, including the KDP leader. They are expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a couple of weeks time, after the Eid holiday that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
A Kurdistan Region delegation, including President Nechirvan Barzani’s representative Dilshad Shahab, attended the Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir.
Shahab told Rudaw that this Newroz is “special,” adding that the Kurdistan Region is ready to provide any support it can for the peace process to prevail.
Ocalan, who founded the PKK in 1978 and launched a war against the Turkish state six years later, has been jailed in a prison at Imrali Island since 1999.
The PKK has set his freedom as a precondition to laying down arms and dissolving itself, stating that the party cannot make such decisions without the physical attendance of Ocalan in an expected upcoming congress.
