News Center- The European Forum for Freedom and Peace (EFFP) launched a campaign called, “I want to visit Abdullah Öcalan” to meet Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan in the prison island of Imrali.

A delegation consisting of 39 people, including academics, politicians and journalists from European countries, arrived in Istanbul on Monday to express their support to the process for the resolution of the Kurdish question and share their opinion.

Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan sent a message from prison to the delegation. His message was read during the “Round Table” meeting at a hotel in Istanbul’s Taksim on Wednesday.

His message is as follows:

“To dear friends…

Your effort to bring forward the search for freedom embodied in my person and your request to meet with me by having a long journey are greatly meaningful and valuable to me. Above all, I do not see such an effort merely as an act of personal solidarity or an individual search for freedom; I see it as a part of social peace, democratic solution, and the will of people to live freely together.

I have never considered my personal freedom separately from social freedom. Moreover, I have always argued that individual freedoms cannot find their true meaning in conditions in which social freedom is not built. For this reason, I see your initiative as a meaningful contribution and a courageous call for the shared democratic future of our peoples.

I have been informed of your request to meet. I hope that the conditions for such a meeting will emerge in the upcoming period. In this regard, I send my greetings and respect to everyone who has contributed—not only on my behalf, but also in support of the democratic will and the search for freedom of our peoples.

Hoping to meet face to face on days full of freedom and in an environment, where a democratic society is built.

Abdullah Öcalan

Imrali Type-F High Security Prison”