A senior commander of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has told AFP that the politico-militant group will not implement any further steps in indirect talks on a peace process with Turkey as long as its founder Abdullah Ocalan remains imprisoned, France 24 reported on November 30.

The commander, Amed Malazgirt, was interviewed in a bunker in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq, where the PKK is headquartered. He urged Turkey to advance negotiations and free 76-year-old Ocalan, known to followers as Apo,

Malazgirt was reported as saying: "All the steps the leader Apo has initiated have been implemented... there will be no further actions taken.

"From now on, we will be waiting for the Turkish state and they have to be the one taking steps."

The commander of the insurgent PKK – which fought an almost continuous four-decade conflict with Turkey prior to May’s formal declaration that the fighting is over and a pledge from the PKK to disband and disarm – added that the PKK wants Ankara to agree to two demands.

"First, the freedom of leader Apo... without this, the process will not succeed. The second is the constitutional and official recognition of the Kurdish people in Turkey," he said.

Female senior commander Serda Mazlum Gabar told AFP that "as long as the leadership is inside [prison], the Kurdish people cannot be free. Nor can we, as guerrillas, feel free."

"Our path to freedom passes through the freedom of our leadership," she added.

Ocalan is imprisoned on Imrali island near Istanbul, where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.

Turkish lawmakers from a cross-party committee set up to advance the peace process with the Kurds paid a first visit to Ocalan last week.

Though the PKK six months ago pledged to disarm, it has so far only burnt a handful of weapons in a cauldron in a symbolic ceremony to demonstrate commitment to the peace process.

Lately, it announced it was withdrawing all of its forces from Turkish soil into northern Iraq and confirmed the withdrawal of militia from a key border area in northern Iraq.

The parliamentary party that represents the Kurds in Turkey is left-wing DEM. If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can form a successful partnership with DEM and, de facto, with the still outlawed PKK, he could secure votes that could be decisive in an attempt to change the constitutional law in a way that would permit him unending rule.

In northeastern Syria, the Kurds still run what amounts to their own statelet, despite heavy pressure from Ankara and Damascus to move forward with an integration into the post-Assad Syrian government led by the former jihadist commander Ahmed al-Sharaa.

In July, the US Ambassador to Ankara and Donald Trump’s special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, told Turkey’s government-run news service Anadolu Agency  “The US government has stated that it will review all their [the PKK commanders’] issues and do its best to ensure a fair and accurate decision. If they want to come to America and live with us, they can do so.”