Abid Ika, an HDP representative in the Kurdistan Region, told Kurdistan 24 the envoy’s visit was meant “to discuss the political situation in the Middle East and the Kurdish development in the region.”
In a press conference after the meeting with Barzani, Temelli described the KDP President as “one of the most influential leaders not only for the Kurds but the politics of the region.”
We are “looking for a democratic process to establish security and stability in the region, especially for the Kurds,” he added.
The visit comes after Turkey’s Interior Ministry removed democratically-elected mayors of the country’s three major Kurdish provinces of Diyarbakir, Mardin, and Van last month.
Istanbul-born Temelli is one of the founders of the HDP and a former lecturer of economics at Istanbul University from which he was sacked in late 2016 in one of the first waves of an ongoing purge of tens of thousands of state employees by the Erdogan administration.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany