UPDATE 1-Jailed militant leader tells Kurdish party to be neutral in Istanbul vote

Jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called on the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) to remain neutral in this weekend's Istanbul re-run election in a statement released on Friday which could influence the contest's outcome. The HDP has supported the opposition against President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP), playing a key role in the narrow defeat of the AKP mayoral candidate in the March vote, which election authorities later annulled due to irregularities.

From his prison cell on an island south of Istanbul, where he has been held for 20 years, Ocalan continues to wield considerable influence among Kurdish supporters of the HDP and made his latest statement after meeting his lawyers on June 18. "The democratic alliance approach of the HDP should not be made a part of current election discussions. The importance of the democratic alliance is that it...insists on its neutral position in elections," Ocalan wrote.

He did not say whether HDP supporters should vote or not on Sunday. The HDP has not yet responded to the statement. State-owned Anadolu agency reported details of the letter on Thursday night. Shortly after, Erdogan appeared in a TV interview to comment in detail on the letter, saying it showed a "power struggle" within the Kurdish movement.

Erdogan's AKP is trailing in polls ahead of the Sunday election and has been struggling to win over Kurdish voters despite a softening of previous rhetoric that alienated Kurds. Ocalan is the founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. It launched an insurgency in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

Despite his isolation and being reviled in Turkish media as "terrorist chief" and "baby killer", Ocalan has at times come to prominence in Turkey, whether at the time of peace talks several years ago or to intervene in hunger strikes by his supporters. Last month, several HDP lawmakers and thousands of prison inmates in Turkey ended a hunger strike in response to Ocalan's request.