A pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party delegation went to Imralı Island on Thursday, March 19, to meet with the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Öcalan is expected to give a letter to the delegation to read out during the Newroz celebrations in the southern Turkish city of Diyarbakır on March 21.
The Newroz messages is expected to be about reconciliation process.
The delegation comprising HDP Parliamentary Group co-chairs Pervin Buldan and Idris Baluken, HDP deputy Sırrı Sureyya Önder, DTK co-chair Hatip Dicle and KJA activist Ceylan Bağrıyanık.
Newroz is the March festival celebrated as the beginning of the new year and is carried out in Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Macedonia, India, Central Asia and Turkey.
The festival is held as an important tradition for Turkey's Kurdish community; during the festival, important speeches can be released. During the 2013 Newroz festivities, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan,called on the PKK to pull back on their armed conflict from Turkey in May and June of 2013, in order to quell armed conflict.
Further on in the reconciliation process, on Feb. 28, 2014, Öcalan called for the PKK members to convene in order to hold disarmament talks.
Abdullah Öcalan is one of the founding members of the PKK, which was established in 1978 in Turkey. He was arrested in 1999 and is serving a life sentence in the İmralı Island Prison, in the Marmara Sea.
The PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, including the United States and the European Union, has been involved in a separatist struggle with Turkey since the early 1980s.
Turkey blames the group for the deaths of thousands of people.
