His comments came more than six months after the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) formally renounced its armed struggle against Turkey, after four decades of violence that claimed some 50,000 lives on both sides.

"This process is a process of ensuring the participation of Kurds in the (Turkish) republic through legal means and building a democratic republic with the broadest social unity," Ocalan said in a message released through a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party who visited him a day earlier.

"I would like to reiterate our strong will and resolute stance with respect to this process."

Ocalan, 76, has led the peace process from his cell on Imrali prison island near Istanbul, where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.

His remarks came just days after a senior PKK commander told AFP the group would take no further steps in the peace process until Turkey frees Ocalan, whom his followers refer to as "Apo".

"All the steps the leader Apo has initiated have been implemented... there will be no further actions taken," commander Amed Malazgirt told AFP on Saturday in a bunker in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.

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