Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has appealed directly to Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, for help in ongoing talks with the Turkish government to end the more than 40-year conflict between his rebels and Ankara.

In a letter delivered to Barzani last week, Ocalan noted that the outcome of the talks would “inevitably affect Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. My aim in this process is to bring about a lasting solution based on democratic principles.” 

“It is of great importance that you also take on leadership of the process,” Ocalan added, according to excerpts from the typewritten letter that were shared exclusively with Al-Monitor. 

Ocalan’s plea from prison came amid mounting uncertainty over the future of the talks that were launched last year and coincided with Barzani’s meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara last week. In the hour-long meeting on Oct. 9, Barzani urged the Turkish president to use his influence to expedite the conclusion of a legal framework that would allow eligible PKK rebels holed up in the mountains of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to return to Turkey, a senior Iraqi Kurdish official told Al-Monitor.