Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), will soon communicate a long-awaited message outlining a road map for peace, the co-chair of Turkey’s major pro-Kurdish DEM party, said on Wednesday after six days of meetings with the top leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government. 

“We expect him to release his message by the end of this month or the beginning of next month,” Tulay Hatimoglullari told Kurdistan 24, a local news outlet. Ocalan is expected to urge his men to lay down their arms and end a more than 40-year insurgency against the Turkish state, capping talks launched in April last year between the rebel leader, PKK commanders and the Turkish government. 

KRG President Nechirvan Barzani, a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has played a key facilitating role, persuading Turkey not to mount its threatened offensive in December against Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town on the Turkish border that has emerged as a symbol of Kurdish resistance against the Islamic State, according to two well-placed sources who briefed Al-Monitor on condition they not be identified by name. 

The DEM’s visit highlighted Kurdish unity at a critical juncture as dialogue between the PKK-friendly autonomous administration in northeast Syria and Syria’s interim government, led by former al-Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Sharaa, has failed to gain traction amid sharply diverging views on how the country should be run.