Recent deadly clashes in Syria between government forces and Kurdish fighters seek to "sabotage" the peace process between Türkiye and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the jailed leader of the Kurdish militant group said.
Abdullah Ocalan, who has led the unfolding Turkish peace process from prison, "sees this situation (in Syria) as an attempt to sabotage the peace process" in Türkiye, a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party said after visiting him in jail on Saturday.
The PKK leader last year called for the group to lay down its weapons and disband, after more than four decades of conflict that claimed at least 50,000 lives.
The delegation that visited him at Imrali prison island near Istanbul, where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999, said he had "reaffirmed his commitment to the process of peace and democratic society" and called to "take the necessary steps to move forward".
The PKK made a similar warning earlier this month, saying the Syria clashes "call into question the ceasefire between our movement and Türkiye ".
The clashes in Syria erupted after negotiations stalled on integrating the Kurds' de facto autonomous administration and forces into the country's new government, which took over after the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024.
The Syrian army has seized swathes of the country's north, dislodging Kurdish forces from territory where they had held effective autonomy for more than a decade.
Türkiye, which views Kurdish fighters in Syria as a terror group affiliated with the PKK, has praised Syria's operation as fighting "terrorist organizations".
