Author

Rena Netjes

Genel

A necessary fact check of Kouchner and Franceschi’s piece on northern Syria in Le Monde

by Rena Netjes
written by Rena Netjes

Rena Netjes

 “If we let Turkey invade Syrian Kurdistan, we can be sure of the return of the Islamic State,” former French Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner and writer Patrice Franceschi wrote on 17 August. 1 https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/08/17/if-we-let-turkey-invade-syrian-kurdistan-we-can-be-sure-of-the-return-of-the-islamic-state_5993850_4.html But this piece calls for a fact check.

 

First of all, the areas Ankara has announced are Tal Rifaat and Manbij. These areas are not Syrian Kurdistan, but Arab areas. Northern Syria has majority Kurdish towns and majority Arab towns. In 2016, the entire Arab population was displaced in Tal Rifaat, a (historically) majority Arab town in  a coordinated military operation by Russia, the Syrian regime, and militants from the People’s Defense Units (YPG) from Afrin. The YPG also attempted to connect the majority Kurdish enclaves of Kobani and Afrin through majority Arab areas, triggering a flow of Arabs refugees mainly from the two towns and surrounding villages to the Turkish border. Bachir Aleito Abu al-Kheir, head of the Tal Rifaat political office, told al-Monitor in 2019 that over 100,000 people had been displaced from the area. These people— either in camps, Azaz, or somewhere else in the area, and also in Turkey—just want to return to their areas.

 

This is not ‘resettling Islamists in their territory’ as the authors claim, this is rather removing the YPG/PKK, which leadership in Afrin and now in Tel Rifaat are non-Syrian Kurds.’ Several locals told me that when they met these leaders, there was always a translator; they didn’t speak the local Afrini Kurdish, nor did they speak Syrian Arabic. These expelled IDPs and local FSA fighters are rather a mix of the society there in northern Syria, that is conservative. They might not have female fighters, but also do not kidnap female minors for their military camps.

 

“In the Western part of northern Syria, the YPG coordinates with the Russians, while in the east with the Americans,” Abdallah al-Hafi told me in Azaz. He is the Syrian Local Councils Unit Director in Azaz. “The YPG practices were a point of no return for the Arab locals in the areas neighbouring Afrin. There was no intention of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to enter Afrin. There were no problems at all. Not between the Assad -opposed Kurds and the Assad -opposed rebels. Firstly, the YPG made a Russian base in Afrin, in Kafr Janna, and Russia entered. Secondly, when the regime was besieged in Nubul and Zahraa, they let them escape. Thirdly, there was Ayn Daqna. It became a war. One sees his brother’s corpse, or his cousin’s, or his friend’s, and the YPG militants put the corpses on a loader and paraded them. After that, it was over. They tried to take Azaz, if they could,” Al-Hafi stated. This does by no means justifies the looting that consequently happened in Afrin, but it provides context of what happened in the area.

 

And recently, regime flags and posters of Bashar al-Assad have been raised in Tal Rifaat, and an Iranian flag has been raised on a communication tower. According to the local media, Iranian militias from Shia pockets, Nubl and Zahraa (south of Tal Rifaat) have spread to the frontlines with SNA rebels. Regime troops also spread to the frontlines near Manbij.

“We can be sure of the return of the Islamic State,” Kouchner and Franceschi write.

 

Well, the local rebels from Tal Rifaat, Aleppo, Marea, Azaz, these areas in Aleppo province joined forces in January 2014 to fight ISIS. They expelled ISIS from Aleppo in two weeks, then Atareb Dar Al-Izza west of Aleppo and Tel Rifaat and other towns north of Aleppo. This was about nine months before YPG started to fight ISIS in Kobani and before the international coalition against ISIS started in September 2014. A battalion of these FSA rebels from Aleppo went to Kobani to help YPG in battle. The former US ambassador Robert Ford wrote a piece about the commander of this battalion, Colonel Abdel Jabar Akeidi. He is not an Islamist. The author interviewed Colonel Akeidi in Gaziantep last year and followed his interviews in Arab media. These rebels killed ISIS leader Haji Bakr in Tel Rifaat. German war correspondent Christoph Reuter wrote about this in Der Spiegel. And like the SDF, these rebels lost many thousands of men fighting ISIS. Still by ISIS sleeper cells, such as the April this year attack on an SNA Levant Front checkpoint in Sijjo, north of Azaz, which killed five members, including a leader, and a few hours later, the headquarters of the coalition attacked by ISIS as well.

 

“This time, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the region’s autonomy, a 2012 conquest from the grips of the Assad regime, during the Arab Spring,” Kouchner and Franceschi write. 

This is simply not true, because there was no conquest. In 2012 the Syrian regime handed over the Kurdish majority areas in the north to the PYD to crush the Syrian Revolution against the regime there, and it needed its troops in the Damascus area for its survival. The regime held however a foothold, a security square, in its two main cities, Qamishli and Hasaka. In the security square of Hasaka Hezbollah fighters arrived recently. 2 https://twitter.com/HussamHamoud/status/1561661961921875968?t=KpY3vqSYTGGjgKrr2jHXhQ&s=08

 

The defected security director of Qamishli, in Syria’s northeast Hasaka province, told the author: “I got orders to hand over all police departments to the PYD/YPG. We even handed them the new weapons and equipment we had received only months before.”

In Afrin City, Koran Ahmad, the Kurdish chairman of the board of Bahar, an NGO working in opposition-held and SDF-held parts of northern Syria, told the author: “It was in June or July 2012, the PYD announced a curfew, so the people wouldn’t leave the house. We heard a few shots. I was standing on the balcony, there was nothing on the ground. Two hours later, they said we had the victory over the regime and we took the areas. Now, there is no Syrian regime here anymore. And really, the next day, when we went out on the street, the regime wasn’t there anymore. They said we won from the regime with the fact that the regime elements stayed but changed their clothes from military to civil and stayed among the people.” When asked about the popularity of the PYD among Syrian Kurds, he said: “It’s one percent.”  Interviewees in northeastern Syria might say it is a bit higher, also because of the jobs provided.

 

The YPG also helped the regime to retake Eastern Aleppo, and it let regime forces in the areas it had ceased. In October 2019, “they agreed the regime to enter northern Syria on three fronts”, Syrian author Hassan Hassan wrote on twitter. “1) Tabqa to Ain Eissa & up to Turkish borders to the west of Tal Abyad. 2) Manbij to Kobane till Tal Abyad and then westward. 3) Hasaka (province), from Tal Tamr to Ras al-Ayn till Qamishli, Malikiyah and southward.” 3 https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1184219468681109509?t=0md78eTQUOlf_iBuKdJxuw&s=08

 

In ‘Democratic Confederalism or Counter-Revolution?’ 4 https://qunfuz.com/2016/02/22/democratic-confederalism-or-counter-revolution/ Syrian author Robin Yassin-Kassab quotes activist and aid worker, Serdar Ahmad: “It was the PYD which stopped our (2004) Kurdish revolution, just as in 2011, it was the PYD that acted as Assad’s shabeeha in the Kurdish areas, beating protestors with sticks.”

 

The Syrian Kurdish National Council, PYD’s main rival has even halted the intra Syrian Kurdish talks, because of all the ongoing violations against their members and supporters, like igniting their offices, arresting and or threatening their cadres, and against journalists. Add the kidnapping of girls and boys, Kurds mainly, but also of other groups, and one can only conclude that the rulers of Northeast Syria are, of course better than the Assad regime, but they are no democrats at all. They fought fiercely against ISIS, many PKK fighters had years of combat experience against Turkey. The FSA rebels as explained also fought fiercely against ISIS.

 

“Finally, the center of Rojava, which Erdogan seized in 2019, continues to serve as a support base for the ISIS sleeper cells – which it has managed to maintain in the areas liberated by the SDF – that keep growing in anticipation of the big day when they will rise together against the Kurds, during the next Turkish invastion,” Kouchner and Fransceschi write.

 

Firstly, Tel Abyad, which Turkey entered in 2019, is also not Rojava, it is an (historically) Arab town; a lot of Arabs of the same al-Qais tribe live in the Turkish mirror town Akcakale, for example. And Ras al-Ayn was a majority Arab town. That of course doesn’t justify the looting of properties of Kurdish families at all, and all the Kurds who fled should have been enabled to safely return. But again this gives context that Arabs also have their story of displacement and want to go home.

Secondly, SNA fighters are being killed by ISIS sleeper cells as SDF fighters are.  Some FSA factions are part of SDF in the first place, as Kurdish anti-Assad fighters and leaders were and still are part of SNA groups. So this assessment of Kouchner and Franceschi is easy to refute.

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Genel

After nearly three years of efforts, talks on uniting the Syrian Kurds have stalled and here’s why

by Rena Netjes
written by Rena Netjes

In the summer of 2020, I wrote an in-depth piece entitled “Why is it so difficult for Syrian Kurdish parties to unite.” 1 https://actafabula.net/why-is-it-so-difficult-for-syrian-kurdish-parties-to-unite/ Almost three years later, in the summer of 2022, the intra Syrian Kurdish talks are halted by the Kurdish National Council (KNC). Here is my follow-up interview with Syrian Kurdish political writer Mohamed Ismail, member of the board of the Kurdish National Council (KNC) and head of the KNC-delegation in the intra Syrian Kurdish talks. The KNC is the main Kurdish rival to the PKK’s sister party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Unlike the PYD, it is in opposition to the regime of Bashar Assad, and as such, it is a member of the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC).

 

Ismail explained that the KNC is subjected to the continuous harassment as a result of the violations that occur on a daily basis, offices of the KNC were ignited, once again, the continuous arrest of members and supporters of the KNC and the threat to the families of the Rosh Peshmerga, a force of the KNC in exile in Iraqi Kurdistan. “The Americans say, so far, the talks haven’t stopped, but they are not in a rush about it,” Ismail says. “To be fair, in the absence of progress, the talks have been halted. And it seems there is a difference within the US Administration regarding Syria.”

Difference?

“There is a difference of opinions in the Biden Administration on the situation in Syria. We, the KNC, from our part, believe in these talks. When they would succeed and create stability in the area and also create a positive environment among the Kurds and reduce the role of the PKK.  And moreover it would create a positive relationship with the other groups (Arabs, Assyrians etcetera) and stability for the region, no threats from neighboring countries. This would be a step forward towards the political solution of Syria, namely UN Resolution 2254. We see this as good and with the guarantor of the EU and America we have confidence in this. What is important is that we can build for the future.”

 

“Three things will not bring stability to the area. First, the return of the regime and its security apparatus. The people will be scared and will flee. Secondly, Turkey entering with armed brigades, some brigades or parts of brigades that have practiced violations in Afrin, Ra’s al-Ayn and Tel Abyad. This will also cause people to flee. And thirdly, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its “cadros” in the area, who don’t have ways other than terror, military and weapons to pressure the people.”

You mentioned arrests of KNC executives. Could you say the names? Are they still being held?

“Currently, they released some journalists, they were detained for more than 120 days despite being just journalists. Despite not being connected to political activity, they didn’t bother anyone. They  pressure the cadres of the KNC, the political cadres, the media cadres, the social cadres. They threaten the families of the Rosh Pesmergas, they threaten them by threatening their families and their children. These are children of the Rosh Pesmergas that are present in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Any person affiliated with the KNC, even as a supporter cannot work. It is necessary that all the work is in their way, in their interest, in their hand, and they force all that, the disruption of work of others, with weapons. This is the way of the PKK. These terrorizing ways are known they also use them in the West. They demand ransom from a person who enters northeast Syria, or they demand ransom from a Kurdish person in Europe, ‘if you don’t give us this amount’, it will affect your family in Syria, your father or your mother. The people do not want to have their names published because the PKK will target those in Syria.”

 

“ What remains is, is the current situation, maybe new things will come to Syria: the withdrawing role of Russia, Iran will come in place of the Russians, the change of Jordan’s stance, the American silence and the Turkish threat to enter. And, as KNC, I give my personal opinion, and as that of the Peace Front which is composed by the KNC,  the Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO), the Syrian Tomorrow Party and the Arab Council of Jezira and the Euphrates…”

Peace Front

“It’s groups of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians, of Sunni Arabs, it’s a kind of opposition [anti Assad, and anti PYD] standing in northeast. They are not affiliated with any party and they are not cooperating with any international side.  It is only working on Syria, it has a clear political vision, it’s not linked to the US, nor to Turkey and so on, but it’s a vision of shared life between the ethnic groups.  This Front, if it can participate with other Syrian National powers in the area, may make an experiment to create stability and prevent Turkish intervention.”

 

The KNC’s Ismail denies that PKK-“cadros” [active members] left Syria as Mazloum Abdi, the head of the SDF, told international Crisis Group. 2 https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/syria/sdf-seeks-path-toward-durable-stability-north-east-syria In November 2020. “It never happened. On the contrary, more PKK-fighters came in, Turkey comes because of the presence of the PKK, the PKK-cadres and the organizations linked to the PKK. When these would leave and leave the rule to the Syrian parties of the different groups, it would spare us a Turkish intervention.”

 

What does the Peace Front think of the upcoming new Turkish operation? And must there be an agreement first with the Americans and with the Russians.

“Of course, and there must be an agreement first with the European countries… this idea of stability will hold back Turkey.  But when Turkey will enter with the brigades, such as Ra’s al-Ayn and Tel Abyad, there will be fear of the situation and more migration. There is no clean war. Whatever will happen.”

Mohamed Ismail, member of the board of the Kurdish National Council (KNC) 

Do you have contact with Kurdish IDPs from Afrin who are now in the Tel Rifaat area, with the ones in the Shahba camps or with the ones that live in houses there? Not all of them are in camps, right?

“Correct. We are in contact with them, but there are two sides. The first side is afraid to return to areas where  brigade violations have taken place. The other side, who want to return to Afrin, the Etilaf (Syrian political opposition) and Turkey and the brigades do not give them a chance to organize this. What happens is, individual cases of return to Afrin. Or people sneak out by smuggling, they pay money so they can go to their homes.  Individual cases of return, a family, or two, or three, each time. But not in groups. There is no decision to return these people to create suitable environment. As UN resolution 2254 says, a safe environment must be created to allow the migrants and displaced persons to their villages in dignity and towns in under international supervision and under the auspices of the UN.”

And the Americans are not very active either, I understand, or because they don’t have influence there because the Russians do. I like to understand this, because the Americans know that there are Kurdish IDPs.

“The Americans they have influence over Syria. They could play a role in any part in Syria. With Turkey, with the brigades, with equipment they have. America is present with the Pentagon in other ways in northeast Syria and in other ways in the eastern Euphrates. It has knowledge of everything that happens. They know everything. They are able to exert influence, to play a role.”

But why they don’t have a role in this?

“Frankly, the human rights organizations that find the violations, the Americans support these organizations. The Americans publish the violations. And they say to some brigades if you continue with the violations you will be blacklisted.”

Why don’t the Americans influence the SDF to let the Kurds who have no money for smugglers but want go back to Afrin? Why are the Americans not using their influence on the PYD to let these Kurdish IDPs in the Tel Rifaat area, the ones that want to go back, go?

“The Americans do not put a lot of pressure on the PYD. This is also a problem. This is a problem. SDF are troops that serve the Americans to some extent, there is a relationship between them. Secondly, America doesn’t go into smaller things.”

Only the fight against ISIS?

“Of course the US is there to fight ISIS. To create general stability in the area, kind of.  They call it sustainable development, a minimum of roads, electricity and water. Not the details.”

What are the current relations between the SDF and the Regime?

“It cannot do anything without the Americans. It can take some movement on the side. The Americans could allow this: “see the regime, see the Russians. There are relations between the SDF and the Russians, logistical in certain points, and the US gives a bit space, but as a result, it doesn’t do anything without US consent. Likewise for the regime.”

So, the Americans agreed that the regime entered the SDF areas? For example, in Tel Rifaat and partly at the northeast Syrian border in 2019?

“I don’t know about this part, but the SDF tries to hand over areas to the regime, and this is leaked news from their circles, and they also announce it before the Turks come, to hand over areas to the regime. The regime is preferable for the SDF in comparison to Turkey. I do not know to what degree the Americans agreed or not.”

But where did you get this information from? Was in the media, or from other sources?

“There are special sources among them. Since when Turkey announced it would enter, this was the the conversation between them. Whatever happens between them, their words come to us, and the situation between them, we hear while we are following and, on the ground there and among the people.”

How are the relations between them and the Regime now?

“Look, the relations with the regime are of two types. Relations between the PKK and the regime are ongoing, and have not stopped for a single day, and they exist at all levels. The SDF’s relations with the regime, as well as their tactics with the regime, are what the US allows them to do on the sidelines. So, they will not bother the Americans.”

Sabri OK, visited Damascus recently. Is he the mediator between the SDF and the Regime?

“He and other leaders of the PKK too. He is with Damascus.”

Is he Syrian or..?

“He is a Turkish PKK.”

Where does he live, inside Syria?

“Inside Syria, of course, how can one go to Damascus and go back.”

Is there something that I forgot to ask? Or something you want to say to the Western public about Northeast Syria?

“The situation in Northeast Syria is a really bad situation.”

Bad..

“Very bad. From the security side it’s very bad that the people are afraid, really a terrorization by the PYD, of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The Asaayish [security forces], Revolutionary Youth [young thugs affiliated with the PYD, recruited among the poorest of Kurdish society], all this is capable of sowing terror among the people. That’s on the security side. The economic situation is very bad. For two years there is no harvest season because there is no rain, and this is in itself a problem for the people, it’s an agriculture area. There is an additional economic crisis. The poor one stays and the others if they get a chance to flee the area, they go to European countries, to Iraqi Kurdistan, wherever they want. The people want to flee, because the situation is very bad, there are no political horizons for this area. There are no signs of hope. Work or life, the economic situation is difficult and the security situation is difficult. Because the economic situation and the security situation are in the hands of the PKK and not the SDC. The Autonomous Administration has no financial resources, or all financial resources are in the hands of others and also in terms of security and that is a danger.  There was European support for some civil areas in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. There the situation is really bad. In addition to the constant threats, of Turkey entering, all the talks are that if Turkey were to enter we will flee, there is a lot of worry and fear. That is the real situation.”

But can the young people flee from the area, or is it very difficult. Can they go through smuggling from Hasaka province to Iraqi Kurdistan?

“It’s hard, there are people who have been arrested and they have also sent them back, that’s a problem. There was a time, during the Kurdish talks that a good climate was created for an initial period, for an agreement, a climate was created but then it went…”

In which year was that?

“In 2020. Now, it is much worse.”

And the cadres of the PKK, I don’t know if you can say, the cadres of the PKK are not Syrians?

“Everyone who owns the decision is from Qandil, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, they are the ones who run the Autonomous Administration. These cadres are from the Kurds of Turkey and Iran [the Turkish and Iranian leaders of the PKK], not the Syrians. At the time of Turkish threats to enter the Kurdish areas in Syria on the border with Turkey, they organize demonstrations with photos of Abdullah Öcalan and the slogans and symbols of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. They demand his freedom. They show that they are here. This is Turkey’s biggest invitation to enter. There should be Syrian-Kurdish symbols, not from outside Syria.”

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Genel

THE INTERVIEW WITH SYRIAN KURDISH POLITICIAN ABDOLAZIZ TAMMO – PART 2

by Rena Netjes
written by Rena Netjes
'Disputes between the US and Turkey and the EU and Turkey reflect badly on Syrians.'

This is part 2 of the interview with Syrian Kurdish politician Abdolaziz Tammo, chairman of the Association of Independent Syrian Kurds. I visited their office in Afrin in March this year. In part one, we talked about the aid to different areas in Northern Syria, and how disputes between the US and Turkey and the EU and Turkey reflect badly on Syrians in opposition-held areas of Northern Syria. We continue here about the situation of Syrian Kurdish IDPs in YPG camps in Northern Syria..and start with the negotiations about the cross border aid extension in to northwest Syria…Quite unexpectedly, Russia did not veto this last Friday.

Tammo: When Trump gave a license to an American company and gave it a waiver from the Caesar law, the Delta company, there is a point; 40% from the oil production revenues goes to the Syrian regime.

Q: They say because of humanitarian reasons?

 

Tammo: It is going to the regime. And the rest should go to the people of the area. So, when the oil comes from Shadadi, the oil is taken from my home every day and I have to pay three dollar for a litre? Why? It’s my oil. Why don’t you give it to me for a symbolic price? Where does this money go? This is the main point of the American presence behind everything. They’re helping the idea that the PKK is stealing the oil.

 

Q: And the Americans now changed it all?

 

Tammo: Biden cancelled the waiver for Delta, but now there are negotiations with the Russians. Those two Russian companies that used to be here  will return to the area. So Russia won’t use a veto in July in the UNSC and maybe the border crossing of Azaz and Ya’roubia will be opened, and Bab al-Hawa extended.

 

Q: Oil versus..

 

Tammo: Versus food. Versus allowing food distribution.

 

Q: Will this happen?

 

Tammo: Russia will, I think, use the veto. Russia has only one goal: everything has to go via Bashar al-Assad. They aim for surrender, while using everything to put the whole control of Syria in the hands of the Assad regime.

 

Q: About recruitment of minors..

 

People in the camps in Debersiya, Hasaka en Shahba (between Aleppo and Azaz) can give you information about how they take their children for training in military camps from 12 years, young children, that is the terrorist project of the future.

 

Meanwhile Jolani in Idlib is pushing the jihadi case in the schools. As opposition we said before about the disputes between Turkey and the EU1 See part 1 of the interview that was published earlier., organisations were angry at us, but there is a system to learn about human rights. Religion belongs to God, the state is for all, Sunni, Druze, Yazidi: all of them are in Syria. Teach them human rights, give them workshops, let them meet with people teaching them this.

 

Now, with the Jolani curriculum of schools, children are taught about the Islamic Caliphate and hate is sown inside the children, that they are different from the others. From the Kurds even, hate not only concerning the religion ya’ni.

 

Likewise, the PKK is teaching that Abdulla Öcalan is this, or that. There is a strange curriculum now. Everyone exploits his own agenda and radical thinking. This is now a total responsibility of those to we now discuss. We consider them a part of the problem.

 

But we consider the Americans and the Europeans allies. They believe in human rights, and so do we. But now minors are kidnapped from the camps and exploited only by the PKK to fight Daesh. The Americans and Europeans haven’t interfered in this child kidnapping in this area. It’s a total disaster. Then they claim they’re fighting terrorism. And we are against terrorism: against Daesh, al-Qaida, the PKK and the militias from Hezbollah and Iran, and Fatemiyyoun (Afghans), Zeynabiyyoun (Pakistanis): They are all jihadists.

Q: Shiites.

 

Tammo: Shiites. But they’re diehard jihadists. And we are fighting against terrorism. Especially the EU was offering us bread, humanitarian aid and education in the area. How do you win a whole generation after you, which believes in democracy and freedom of expression? They carry the responsibility. Now, the humanitarian goods are going to Idlib only as food. Any education curriculum to be used in the schools is not going in. Instead, the al-Qaida ideology is being pumped into these children’s hearts and minds.

 

The EU stopped all aid in our Syrian opposition area only.. But it is present in other areas. Aren’t they wondering when they offer aid to the PKK, what curriculum is being taught in the schools? They don’t tell Mazloum Abdi: What are you teaching, the ideology of Abdulla Öcalan and placing toxic PKK ideology in their minds? Do schools in Europe teach this? There aren’t! My children live in Europe, they follow a curriculum about norms – how to respect and help the elderly and how to respect family members unlike in the East Euphrates. There’s only the worship of Öcalan. There is none like him.

 

The one who pays the piper, is also responsibility for the tune. So, the Europeans and Americans are responsible for the way education money in East Euphrates is spent on Öcalan worship. So, you are paying for the education without asking what is the curriculum? In the opposition-held area, we still have the former Syrian State curriculum acknowledged and approved of by Unicef. While they teach their own and does Jolani with his.

 

Q: Is the regime curriculum current in Azaz?

 

Tammo: It is, apart from one subject called nationalism, provided by the Baath party. We could remove that one.  But the materials, mathematics and so, everything is Unicef. The world education foundation. So how can they have curriculum of their own in the Republic of Öcalan and Jolani on their own?

 

Q: You call it the Republic of Öcalan…

 

Tammo: The Republic of Öcalan is a big problem. So, with the Europeans and the Americans knowing what is happening in Idlib and Qamishli, with this ongoing education, there will be future terrorist projects there.

 

In the opposition area, we have schools within the current possibilities. We don’t have real possibilities, but stick to the Unicef curriculum. The only addition to it was Kurdish. In Afrin, and elsewhere, Kurdish was added alongside Arabic. So were English and French. The education offered is not on top level; but 60% is okay. And nothing here calls for extremism, terrorism, or extremist thinking. Arabic or Kurdish nationalism are both absent. There is material concerning religion for the small minority of Christian brothers present in Afrin or in Ra’s al-Ayn. Taught to their students in Afrin and Ra’s al-Ayn.

 

Q: Are there Christians in the Afrin region?

 

Tammo: Yes. There is also a pastor, a priest and a church. And there are Yazidis.

 

Q: I was aware of the presence of Yazidis.

 

Tammo: True. In the beginning there were violations, but they have ended. Turkey is helping them a lot in this matter of minorities.

 

Q: Turkey is helping?

 

Tammo: Turkey is helping a lot with the matter.

 

Q: There are people who say Turkey entered in order to ethnically cleanse the area, it wants to remove all the Kurds (Afrin).

Tammo:  Not at all. Turkey entered to remove the PKK, and not the Kurds! The Kurds that stayed in Afrin get their rights. We mean there are religious rights to keep the worship places for the Christians, and for the Yazidis, and even Turkey spends money in Afrin to restore those war-damaged places, and the clergy.

 

Q: And where are the Christians in the Afrin region?

 

In the city of Afrin. Even in the town of Ma’batli there are Kurdish Alewites. The Alewites in Ma’batli have their full rights. We do not say they are Alewites like Bashar al-Assad, no.  

 

Q: I thought before my trip, there were hardly any Kurds in Afrin, nor any Kurdish political party office open. I didn’t know that the Association of Independent Kurds was present there. And how Arabs and Kurds are cooperating to fix matters.

 

Tammo: In 2016, I told the American congress they were pimping the PKK and the general American opinion by telling them they are heroes, because they fight Daesh. But this picture fails when you leave out to the American public that they kidnap girls and 12-year-olds are conscribed into military service? This is no freedom for women. Sorry, but the freedom of a woman is when she voluntarily wants to go to the army. That is not a problem. But a 12- or 13-year-old child needs to go to school. And to university. Maybe she can become a teacher, a doctor, or a lawyer, or anything. But don’t force her to go fighting with you. That is not a woman’s freedom. How are the Kurdish female fighters conscripted? Do their fathers have influence? They have been kidnapped. They go to military camps in Qandil for six months, a year..and then, there is their ideology. A girl’s education girl should first be with respect of her family, her parents, and environment.

 

Q: The despair of the family after a kidnapping…

 

Tammo:  That is a big problem. The Americans go by the media, the public opinion, and the Europeans too. The public opinion is pimped via the Washington Post and The New York Times or Der Spiegel. Now, over a year ago they started to tell the truth. Because the PKK causes problems inside Germany by terrorist attacks.There is a basic thing the general public in Europe should know. where did the ISIS fighters that were captured by the International Coalition when ISIS finished in Raqqa or in Baghouz or in Deir al-Zour?

 

Q: In prisons.

 

Tammo: Partly, there are also who work with the SDF.

 

Q: Really?

 

Tammo: How can one change from jihadi terrorist to a Marxist fighter? I want to understand. There are photos I will send you of an emir of Daesh who has become a part of SDF. The general public in Europe should both know this and that we have 115,000 Kurds from Afrin in camps who were taken hostage by the PYD when they left from Afrin.

 

Q: Can’t they return from their side?

 

Tammo: The PYD/PKK don’t allow them to return. In the beginning, we helped them a lot with their return. When the PKK was expelled from Afrin, there was exchange: our Afrin office was helping every day 60, 70 families to return. This was in April 2018. During the whole of 2018 people were returning. The ones who intervened there in 2019 made a large camp, called Shahba. They put the people in a camp with always guards around it, like al-Hol. They don’t allow anyone to go out to their house in Afrin. The people say that enduring the insult of staying in our houses for one month (in Afrin) is better than ten years in a camp. Because we don’t want the Palestinian camps experience to repeat. They stayed in camps in Syria, in Lebanon, in Jordan for decades. From this perspective we supported and facilitated everyone who wanted to return to his house

 

Q: Who exactly did this?

 

Tammo: We did as the Association of Independent Syrian Kurds. We helped many and now about 60% of the people of Afrin returned to their lands, to their homes. They invest, they plant, they do their work, and they live their lives in a normal way. But we want the other 40% to return, the ones now in Aleppo and Shahba.

 

Q: In Aleppo, the regime prevents them….

 

Tammo: So, does the PKK. In PKK controlled Ashrafiyya, Sheikh Maqsoud it does. Even until now. In full coordination with the regime of course. They don’t allow them to return. Now, the returns happen in individual cases, by paying bribes to PKK members. The costs for the return of one person to Afrin is 2,000 dollars. They need to pay a bribe to the PKK and a bribe to the smuggler, so it costs ,000 dollar for one person to return to his house. It is a big problem. We demand from the Americans or from the EU to put pressure on Mazloum Abdi to allow the people to return to their homes.

 

Q: What do the Americans say? And the Europeans…?

 

Tammo (frustrated): The Americans claim they have nothing to do with the matter. But the aid they offer is money to the PYD and the PKK and humanitarian aid to these camps. But we want the people to return to their homes. All the aid for the camps in Shahba is from the Americans and the EU. But, for example, there is no aid at all for the people of Tel Rif’at who are staying in a camp near Bab al-Salama.

 

Q: Not at all?

 

Tammo: Not at all. We also are willing to accept a deal… Of course, the inhabitants of Afrin should return without a deal. We also demand the return of the people of Afrin to Afrin from the Americans, and the return of the people of Tel Rif’at to Tel Rif-at, from the Azaz camps. I’m sorry, but don’t the Americans and the Europeans say it is a Turkish occupation of Afrin? And of Tel Rif’at? Who occupies the Tel Rif’at area and its neighbouring 59 villages? is it the PKK or someone else?

 

People should know this: we Syrians decide who is the occupier and who are the occupied. I don’t view the International Coalition occupying our land. I don’t view the Americans and the International Coalition occupying Raqqa and Deir al-Zour. What I am saying is there is an agreement between Russia and the Assad regime. And Russia is considered an occupying state; Hezbollah is considered an occupier. But Turkey and America aren’t. America intervened to fight against terrorism, it helped the Syrians to fight terrorism. This is not an occupation. And the Americans said so. They don’t consider the Iraqi and the Turkish forces occupiers, only the Russians… That is an American statement. They consider Russia an occupying state. Russia is responsible for the citizens, the food, and the humanitarian aid. They explained to them the Turkish intervention is not an occupation. The only occupiers are…. even Iran and Hezbollah need to leave. Russia is occupying Syrian lands and it needs to take care of the Syrian people. So, the Americans expressed it is not an occupation but an intervention to fight terrorism. The Americans came with about 3,000, and the Europeans with about 1,500 aiming to fight terrorism, and Turkey came to fight PKK and Daesh terrorism 100 meter or less away from its border.  In Jarabulus and in al-Bab, in al-Ra’y.

 

Q: At that time, in March 2016, people were arriving in Turkey at the Bab al-Salama border crossing because of the YPG-fighters who took their houses…

 

Tammo: Yes, YPG and PKK occupy 59 Arab villages in Shahba and Tel Rif’at.  

 

Q: By the way, from the Azaz – Afrin Road one could see a YPG outpost.

 

Tammo:  Yes, there is YPG presence, at Jebel Ahlam for instance.

 

Q: And every night there was shelling, from the Kafr Khaashir or Ma’ranaz frontlines, only 3 km away each.

 

Tammo: I am not with Turkey, but I am with the truth. Now, I need to respect Turkey, we have 4 million Syrians in Turkey, of which 400,000 are Syrian Kurds. It’s the biggest country in receiving Syrian refugees. That’s one. Secondly, Turkey has a 910 km long border with Syria. It is in my interest when Turkey is a befriended country, not an enemy. The PKK says Turkey is an enemy, but I don’t. Turkey is a befriended country and this it is self-interest…

 

Q: The border crossings and…

 

Tammo: Of course. My problem as a Syrian Kurd is in Damascus, not in Ankara.  Neither with Baghdad nor with Amman. I don’t have another border but the Turkish one. What concerns me is that Turkey is the only lifeline, border of 910 km. If Turkey closes the border, I can’t live nor continue. Turkey offers aid to the Syrians. Refugees from Kobani for instance.

 

I met with former US Syria envoy James Jeffrey in Gaziantep, and we had taken families from Kobani with us… And we asked him. Of course, Mr. Jeffrey was talking about the accomplishments of the International Coalition; they had expelled Daesh from Kobani and from Raqqa, from Manbij, from Deir al-Zour. He spoke a lot. We asked him a question: ‘Okay, you International Coalition are basically the US, a country supporting democracy and freedom and respecting human rights. You don’t wonder why the people of Kobani don’t return from Turkey to Kobani? You expelled Daesh from Kobani and the families fled to Turkey. About 25 – 30% returned to Kobani. They reconciled with the PKK. But the rest, why don’t they want to return? They are present in Suruç, present in Şanlıurfa, in Nizip.’ He said: ‘I don’t know.’ I told him: ‘You expelled the terrorist Daesh, and the solution was to replace them with PKK terrorists?’ Those people can’t return because there are terrorists who expel them.

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Genel

Dısputes between the US and Turkey and the EU and Turkey reflect badly on Syrıans

by Rena Netjes
written by Rena Netjes
'Disputes between the US and Turkey and the EU and Turkey reflect badly on Syrians.'
Rena Netjes

Abdolaziz Tammo is a Syrian Kurdish politician originally from Qamishli. He is the brother of Mashaal Tammo who was assassinated in Qamishli in 2011, by PYD militants. In March 2021, I visited the office of the Association of Independent Syrian Kurds in Afrin City. 

 

And earlier this month I interviewed the head of the Association of Independent Syrian Kurds. His association is trying hard to help Syrian Kurds to return to Afrin and Ra’s al-Ayn. I interviewed him in Istanbul. He had just returned from a trip to Afrin. I asked him about aid to Northwest Syria, IDPs, Kurdish and non-Kurdish, and about the situation in Northern Syria. Here is part 1 of the interview. 

Q: Could you explain the situation about aid to Northwest Syria?

 

Tammo: Disputes between the US and Turkey and the European Union and Turkey reflect badly on Syrians. These international disputes are disputes between two sides. All sides – and especially the American and the European sides – do so.  Also, on the Syrian opposition. The intervention of the National Army and the Turkish army into Afrin only added to all this. And from the start of the Euphrates Shield Operation against Daesh in Jarabulus and other towns. Turkey was and is still a member of the international Coalition against Daesh, against terrorism.

 

After the Olive Branch operation in Afrin, and the Peace Spring operation in Ra’s al-Ayn, the EU and the US halted access of any humanitarian organization to the area. This impacts us.

Q: Do the aid goods go to the Salvation government?

 

Tammo: The aid goods from the US and the EU and also from the UN do so. And they do not go to Afrin, nor to Al-Bab or Jarabulus and Tel Abyad.

 

Q: What is the evidence for the claim that the aid goods are distributed to the Salvation government?

 

Tammo: There are NGOs operating there. How can these organizations work if they haven’t been authorized by the Salvation government or from Jolani? Truth is, no-one can work there without authorization! This is the current situation which is also valid even in Europe or anywhere else: The government’s yes is a precondition for any organization that wants to offer humanitarian aid. This aid goes via the Bab al-Hawa border crossing to Idlib, and via the Samalka border crossing in Iraqi Kurdistan to the PKK in Northeast Syria.

 

Q: Also via Samalka? Because there is talk on Ya’roubia…

 

Tammo: They closed Ya’roubia. The Russians used their veto right.

 

Q: Yes, but Samalka is still open..

 

Tammo: Samalka is open, trucks with aid enter in on a daily base to the east of the Euphrates area (Northeast Syria), in addition to that, there are huge amounts being paid to organizations that work in Northeast Syria. They work on the basis of irrigation and agriculture, but it is not like this. The amounts go to the Self Administration  that is part of the PKK. The money  is used for digging tunnels and for the PKK military interests. Not to the citizens.

 

East from the Euphrates, is the international coalition influence area. Presently, the Europeans are partners in this area, not only the Americans. We politicians see that. And the International Coalition is a group of countries, not only the US.

 

Q: Also The Netherlands are in the International Coalition.

 

Tammo: The Netherlands are also part of it, of course. Here we arrived at some significant questions. Is it logical that in an area which is rich with oil, grain and food, there is no bread for citizens? There is no petrol? It is a rich area.

 

All countries in the world tell us Syria is a unity, people- and soilwise. But they see Nidal Ibo’s statements, who defected from the PKK, saying: the Northeast Syria oil trade is up to 120 million dollar per month. From this, 40 million dollar go to the SDF military salaries and 80 million dollar go to Qandil. He said so on TV. 

Q: Where is he now?

 

Tammo: In Aleppo, and Damascus, he moved towards the Syrian regime. This area here is under the International Coalition’s influence. But the coalition doesn’t ask them why these amounts of money go to Qandil. Why are they not spend on the people? As humanitarian aid? It’s all we ask.

 

At the same time, these organizations which reject to work in Afrin, al-Bab, Jarabulus, Tel Abyad, and in Ra’s al-Ayn –  why do they work with Jolani? And Jolani is also on the list of terrorist groups with the name of al-Qaida. Why would an American go to Idlib and sit with Jolani ten days ago?

 

Q: I was also surprised. Why they go and sit with Jolani?

 

Tammo: You should be as well. But why doesn’t an American journalist go to Afrin as well? Or a British journalist. Why doesn’t he come to this area? To find out about the worries of the people, about the problems of the people?

 

Q: Actually I have to say, I also arranged my trip to Azaz and Afrin in March by myself.

 

Tammo: After 10 years of crisis, or the humanitarian disaster, we Syrians started to read politics well. Of course, we know there are no continued animosities nor friendships between states. These animosities between Turkey and the Europeans and the Americans reflect on us. It is exploited on us. We will be the victims, the simple Syrian employee who lives a simple life, from these disputes.

 

Unfortunately, we experience accordingly to what politicians express in the US and in Europe. The general European and American opinion. Why don’t these politicians talk about the Iranian militias or Hezbollah? They are also jihadists.

 

There is a basic point, I have a message maybe you can publish this, for the European public opinion in general and the Dutch. The Dutch government does not support politically the events in Syria. I’m sorry. They consider American policy. France, Germany, all consider the American policy first and then the European Union. We only ask to look at the situation through the eyes of a human being. You care about democracy and human rights in your country. This applies to every country in the world. In the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Guatemala, in America. Humans are humans whether European, Syrian, American, or African. All we ask for is the general opinion of the Europeans, to see that this matter is humanitarian, first and foremost.

 

This people are going through a crisis. The Syrian crisis is political, between a dictator and the people. The people want to get rid of this dictator supported by Russia and Iran.

 

They want to change the system towards democracy and towards the protection of human rights on the highest level. Unfortunately, the governments connected the humanitarian matter in Syria with the political matter. But the political matter is not connected with Syria but with international disputes, between the Americans with both the Russians and Turkey. This connecting of the humanitarian matter with the political matter leaves room to many questions: where are the human rights in Europe and are they leading here? There were demonstrations in Shadadi and in Manbij. Where did the gun fire come from that was fired at the people? From the International Coalition. It is the International Coalition offering these weapons to the PKK, and the PYD and innocent people are being killed.

 

Q: In the recent days there were also demonstration in Shadadi? Or when were they?

 

Tammo: Demonstrations took place in Shadadi fifteen days ago and a number of demonstrators were killed by gun fire. As we are speaking, demonstrations have been going on now for three days in Manbij. Does Europe have forced conscription? Do you kidnap minors, 12- and 13-years-old for the service? How can they kidnap children and bring them to military camps for forced conscription, with funds from the Europeans and the Americans? You are paying these organizations’ funding. And this is a fundamental point the general opinion of Europe should know. The Dutch citizens should know this.

 

We are here trying to get across what is going on concerning us, as Syrian representatives or as people from the Middle East. Maybe the Americans are very far, but we were looking at Europe as democratic countries respecting human rights, regardless of a person’s skin colour, religion or nationality. Europe paid the price to arrive to where it is today. It also paid victims in the millions. You know of course, Europe for over a hundred years ago. And since Europe paid the price, is it reasonable that Europe in 21st century helps a dictator and terrorist groups against humanity? Now in Syria, there is a new generation that has grown up with one idea: those Americans and Europeans supported terrorist groups who are fighting against us. We see this in Manbij. They see their brother killed by the European or American bullet, from the inside. We exhausted ourselves a lot as Syrian politicians to convince the people that Europe is pro-democracy and pro-human rights, but the new generation in Syria sees the opposite when it comes to Syria. And why do Europe and the US support the Emirate of Jolani in Idlib, but don’t support the inhabitants of Afrin, and Jarabulus, al-Bab, Tel Abyad and Ra’s al-Ayn? I talked with a European representative in Gaziantep and told him you are making a mistake. A human being is a human being, whether he is in Idlib or in Afrin or even in Lattakiya and Tartous. Don’t connect political matters to humanitarian matters. This goes also for the people in regime areas. Like the others, they are Syrian, and need aid, too.

 

Q: The Syrian can’t open his mouth..

 

Tammo: He cannot open his mouth. But in the end he is a human being and needs food, he needs medicine, and medical aid.

 

Q: What do the Europeans say?

 

Tammo: The Europeans connect the work with the political stance. Their disputes with Turkey lead to refusing aid to Syrians there. In that area, from Idlib to Ra’s al-Ayn, are millions of Syrians. In general, Europeans should understand that these millions of Syrians suffer from a refusal. This is an essential point.

 

We don’t distinguish between people, whatever their nationality. We don’t ask the Europeans to support us as politicians. I may differ with the EU in a political matter, but I have interests as a Syrian.

 

In the past, we used to say we would break the fear barrier, the fear from oppression, and from national slogans, in order to build a national state for and of the citizens, with equality between all the people in Syria. And even then, in the beginning, we hoped Syria could be part of the European Union. Our children could go and study in Brussels, in Holland, and build up Syria. Europe was our role model. But this hope, to comply fully with the EU, has faded.

 

We now have children that are being taught jihad. In Idlib, it is said: “We are going to liberate Rome.” Others say: “We are going to liberate Diyarbakir.” In Idlib, you can hear them say: ”Our goal is not Damascus, our goal is to liberate Rome.” Here is the problem. Unfortunately, the Europeans are the ones halting all this support, including education and humanitarian aid. It was possible to export these to the rest of Syria, but it is completely halted.

 

About the Kurdish IDPs, we now have 115,000 Kurds from Afrin in camps in Sha’ban, in Tel Rif’at.

 

Q: How many?

 

115,000 Kurds are present in the Shahba camps. That is called Shahba between Aleppo and Azaz. And we have 24,000 Kurds in camps in Debersiya, in Amouda in Qamishli, in Hasaka, they are from Ra’s al-Ayn. We don’t receive aid to help them return, neither from the Americans nor the Europeans, to put pressure on the PYD to allow the people to return to their houses. But what is worse, they present their terrorist projects to the people in the camps.  Who is offering bread to those in the camps? That is the PKK! They offer them humanitarian aid. They take children to Qandil. What will they become? Terrorists.

 

Q: Do they take children from the camps to Qandil?

 

Tammo: Yes they go to Qandil. The PKK is using them.

 

Q: Is there any proof of?

 

Tammo: There is all proof of.

 

The Syrian Kurdish Yekiti party (KNC / ENKS) published an article about four minors kidnapped from al-Shahba camps.

To be continued.

 

With friendly editorial support by Limwierde Taaldiensten.

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Genel

SURİYELİ KÜRT PARTİLERİNİN BİRLEŞMESİ NEDEN BU KADAR ZOR?

by Rena Netjes
written by Rena Netjes
Why is it so difficult for Syrian Kurdish parties to unite?
Rena Netjes

Rena Netjes Clingendael Ensititüsü'nde Arap coğrafyası üzerine
çalışma yapmakta ve şu anda Suriye'de Kürtler üzerine çalışmaktadır.

“KNC ile PYD arasındaki (gizli) diyalog ya da görüşmelerin ikinci safhası yaklaşık bir hafta önce yeniden başladı”: KNC heyetinden bir temsilci 23 Temmuz Çarşamba günü yazara bu açıklamayı yaptı. Aynı temsilci “Bu görüşmeler üç konu çerçevesinde Dohuk Anlaşması’na1 Divided Syrian Kurds reach deal in face of ISIS threat, Rudaw, habere gitmek için tıklayınız  göre yürütülecek. İlk konu yetki, ikinci konu yönetim ve üçüncü konu da askerî meseleler olacak. İlk konu ile başladık. Bugüne kadar doğrudan bir görüşme olmadı. Temsilciler arasında doğrudan (yüz yüze) bir toplantı henüz yapılmadı. Amerikalıların araya girmesi ile evrak ve düşünce alışverişi gerçekleştirildi. Ancak ilk taslak metin üzerinde tartışmak için doğrudan bir toplantı gerçekleştirmeye çok yakınlaştık. Beklemek için uzun bir zaman geçeceğini düşünmüyorum; birkaç gün içinde gerçekleşebilir” dedi.

 

Suriye Kürtleri on yıllardır, tüm Suriyelilerin yaşadığı baskının yanında, haklarından mahrum bir şekilde yaşıyorlar. Ancak, bunun yanında Suriye Savaşı’nın başlamasının üzerinden yaklaşık on yıl geçmiş olmasına, IŞİD tehdidine, Türkiye’nin Afrin ve Kuzey Suriye’deki müdahalelerine rağmen Suriyeli Kürt partileri hâlâ birleşebilmiş değil. Peki neden? Bu makalede, bu sorunun cevabını bulmaya çalışacağım. Bunun yanında tüm partilerin duruşları göz önünde bulundurulduğuna bir araya gelmelerinin mümkün olmadığını ortaya koyacağım.

 

Amerikalılar, Kobani’de IŞİD’le savaşan YPG’ye (Halkın Koruma Birlikleri) silah indirerek askerî olarak destek vermeye başladı. Irak Peşmergeleri Türkiye üzerinden ve bir ÖSO (Özgür Suriye Ordusu) birliği de Halep’ten yardıma geldi. Amerikalı bir diplomat yazara yaptığı açıklamada “YPG’nin tek bir kontrol hattı vardı ve bu da onlarla çalışmayı kolaylaştırdı” açıklamasında bulundu. Tüm bunlar Suriye’nin üçte birini kapsayan YPG öncülüğündeki şu anki SDG (Suriye Demokratik Güçleri) içinde gelişti. SDF’nin kontrolündeki bölgenin nüfusunun çoğu Araplardan oluşuyor. Çoğunlukla Rakka ve Deyrezzor bölgelerinde yaşayan Araplar, gizli görüşmelerde yer almıyor. Büyük ihtimalle kendileri için ne karar verileceğini tahmin etmekle yetiniyorlar gibi görünüyor ki aynı durum bölgenin Süryanileri (Hristiyanlar) gibi daha küçük bileşenler için de geçerli.

 

SDG komutanı Mazlum Abdi 16 Haziran’da sosyal medya paylaşımında “KNC ve Kürt Ulusal Birlik partilerinin müşterek çalışmasından gurur duyuyoruz. Çalışmaların bir ön anlaşmayla neticelenmesi de sevinç kaynağı” dedi.2 Bu çeviri PYD’nin yayın organı olan ANHA’dan alınmıştır

 

Ancak bu paylaşımdan bir gün sonra, Suriye Kürtleri arasındaki görüşmelerde bulunan KNC müzakerecisi WhatsApp üzerinden gönderdiği sesli mesajda bir anlaşmaya varıldığını yalanladı: “Uzlaşılan noktalar var ancak bir anlaşma yok. Uzlaştığımız noktalardan biri ortak bağlayıcılığı olan bir siyasi vizyon geliştirmek oldu. Gelecekteki görüşmelerin temelinin Dohuk Anlaşması’nın üzerine kurulması ve bu sayede görüşmelerden iyi neticeler elde edileceği noktasında da bir uzlaşıya vardık”.3 alrayiysiat ‘iielam ENKS ‘akhbar ‘iielam ENKS bayan mushtarak ‘iilaa al’iielam walraay aleamm. ENKS resmi web sitesi, haber için tıklayınız 

İki Rakip Blok Neden Birleşemez?

KNC liderleri ile yapılan mülakatlarda onlara KNC ile PYD arasındaki farklılıkları sordum. Benimle şu sekiz noktayı paylaştılar:

 

İlk olarak bizler 1957’den başlayan ve günümüze kadar uzanan süreçte Kürt halkının Suriye’deki varlığı ve haklarını savunmak için mücadele veren siyasi partileriz. Mücadelemizin odak noktası burası. İkincisi biz Suriye’de kan döken rejime karşıyız. Biz, Suriye Ulusal Muhalefeti’nin yanındayız ve siyasî bir çözüm arayışındayız. Üçüncüsü, Suriye toplumuyla ilişkimizde siyasî ve demokratik bir yol benimsiyoruz, silahlardan ve baskıdan uzak duruyoruz. Bizim vizyonumuz net ve herkese açıktır. Dördüncüsü, Kürt hareketi ve KNC’nin ulusal muhalefete ve onun siyasi mücadelesine yaklaşımı nettir, mücadeleleri Kürt toplumu kadroları nezdinde de nettir. Beşincisi PYD, PKK’yı temsil eden yedek partidir ve Kürt halkının haklarıyla ilgili bir ajandası yoktur. Sadece PKK’ya lojistik destek sağlamak ve PKK’nın ajandasını yerine getirmek için kuruldu. Dahası bu amacı yerine getirmek için hiçbir aracı kullanmaktan çekinmiyorlar. Altıncısı PYD, rejimle birlikte hareket ederek Kürt hareketinin, Kürt ve Suriye halkının taleplerinin baskı altına alınmasını sağladı. Rejimi ve rejimin ekonomik kurumlarını koruyarak rejime destek verdi. Yedincisi, PYD’nin tek aracı silah ve baskıdır. Diğer seçenekleri etkisiz hale getirir ve herhangi biri ile iş birliği yapmayı reddeder. PYD ajandasını, yoldaşları ve yöneticileri de dahil olmak üzere, herkesten saklar. Son olarak, PYD Kürt hareketinin yayılmasını engellemek için adam öldürme, adam kaçırma ve tehdidi kullanır. Rejimin suç ortaklarıdır ve hepsi Suriye halkının düşmanıdır.

 

Yapılan röportajlara baktığımızda iki yapı arasında çok daha fazla ihtilaf ve engel bulunduğu görülüyor. Şöyle ki KNC’nin askerî kanadı (Kesin istatistikler yok, ancak Suriyeli Kürt kaynaklar yaklaşık 3.000- 4.000 kişi diyor) ve Roj Peşmergeleri (Bazı KNC politikacıları Kürt ÖSO’su olarak tanımlıyor) kuzeydoğu Suriye’nin dışında bulunuyor; PYD/YPG bölgeye girmelerine izin vermiyor, bu yüzden hâlâ Irak Kürdistan Bölgesi’nde bulunuyorlar. KNC liderlerinin çoğu bölgeden sürüldü ve geri dönemiyorlar. Aynı durum KNC aktivistleri ve Süryani (Hristiyan) ve Arap muhalifler için de geçerli.

 

KNC siyasetçilerinin çoğu PYD ve YPG’den PKK ile bağlarını alenen reddetmesini istedi, ancak bu asla gerçekleşmedi. Mazlum Abi, Aldar Xelil ve Salih Müslim uzun yıllar Kandil’de çatışma eğitimi alan, tanınmış PKK militanlarıdır. PKK ABD, AB ve Türkiye tarafından terör örgütü olarak tanımlanmaktadır.4 ABD Dışişleri Bakanlığı, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau Of Counterterrosism, sözkonusu sayfaya ulaşmak için tıklayınız

 

PYD’li siyasetçiler, yapılan röportajlarda PKK’ya bağlı olmadıklarını ancak onunla aynı ideolojiyi paylaştıklarını söylediler. Aynı zamanda aralarında ihtilafları da şöyle dile getirdiler: “KNC ve onunla olan diğer partiler Cuma günü namazdan sonra camiden çıktılar ve Allahu Ekber, Allahu Ekber diye bağırdılar ve eylemi bitirdiler. Bir saat sürdü. Diğer haftaya kadar sadece bu kadar. Devrim, elbette, bu değildir. Bir fikir olmalı. PYD bir fikirdir, ve biz bunu bütünlüklü bir vizyonla sahada temsil ediyoruz. YPG bizim koruma gücümüzdür, savunmamızdır. Ve topluma baktığımızda Araplar var, Süryaniler var Kürtler var; bu toplumun bir araya gelmesi. PYD ile bir ilişkisi yok. Şiiler ve Sünniler arasındaki bir çatışma ile bunun sona ereceğini biliyoruz”.

 

PYD/Tevdem’den Aldar Xelil, Syria TV’deki açıklamasında “Biz sahadayız, onlar Suriye’nin dışında” dedi. KNC lideri İbrahim Biro, neden dışarıda (Erbil’de) olduğuna dair yöneltilen soruya verdiği cevapta: “Beni Kuzey Suriye’de tutukladılar ve oradan sürdüler ve eğer Kuzey Suriye’ye dönersem öldürmekle tehdit ettiler” dedi.5 Arapça bilen okuyucularımız bu hikayenin tamamını içeren televizyon programı izleyebilmek için buraya tıklayabilir

 

SDG lideri Mazlum Abdi, Türkiye’nin Eylül 2019’da Kuzey Suriye’de Tel Abyad (YPG kontrolünde, Arap) ve Resülayn (YPG kontrolünde Arap Kürt ve Süryani, Çerkes ve diğerleri) bölgelerine müdahalesinin ardından Suriye Kürtlerini bir çatı altında toplamak üzere bir girişim başlattı. İki rakip bloğu birleştirmeye yönelik önceki sayısız teşebbüse bakıldığında, bu görüşmelerde bulunan kişilerin yazara yaptığı açıklamalara göre PYD/YPG, KNC’ye karşı gerçekten taviz vermek istemiyor. Bundan bir sene önce Fransa Dışişleri Bakanlığı iki partinin de katıldığı verimsiz bir konferans düzenledi. Hollanda’daki görüşmelerde bulunan temsilciler başka yerlerde de karşılıklı konuşmaların gerçekleştirildiğini söyledi.

 

KNC’li bir yetkili yazara yaptığı açıklamada: “SDG üzerinde bir baskı var. Türkiye’nin Tel Abyad ve Resülayn’a girmesinden bu yana bir baskı var. Ve uluslararası anlaşmalar, Türk-Rus anlaşması, Türk-Amerikan anlaşması. Mazlum Kobani 32 km. ileriye gitti, hâlâ da sınırın yakınında. Amerikalılar Irak’tan Kamışlı’ya döndü ve Fişabur aracılığıyla Kamışlı’dan biraz daha batıya. Amude’de Ruslar var. Mazlum durumun bu kadar kötü olduğunu görünce, Kürtlere birleşme çağrısında bulundu. Amerikalılar bizi (KNC) daha fazla sıkıştırdı. Çok uzun zaman önceden bugüne kadar. Amerikalılara güven tesis etmeye, ofislerimizi açmaya ve siyasi faaliyetlere başlamaya ve kaybolan üyelerimizin nerede olduğunu ortaya çıkarmaya ihtiyacımız olduğunu söyledim. Üstünü örtmeye çalıştılar; böyle güven inşası olmaz, eğer güven olsaydı “onları biz öldürdük” demeleri gerekirdi” dedi.

 

 “Onları öldürdüler, sekizi de kayıp olabilir mi?” “Evet, biz buna inanıyoruz”. Amerikalılar, kayıpların dosyasını bildiklerini ve PYD’nin bazı hatalar yaptığını söyledi, fakat “Bir yol bulmamız gerekiyor. Bir adım daha atılmasını istiyoruz. Diyaloga başlamak istiyor musunuz, istemiyor musunuz?” Açıkçası, Amerika önemli bir ülke, hayır deme şansımız yok. Ancak SDG’nin ne derece ciddi olduğunu bilmek istiyoruz. SDG, PYD’ye ne derecede baskı yapacak ve PYD’nin anlaşmayı kabul etmesini sağlayacak? Prensipte, belki önümüzdeki haftadan itibaren bir görüşme başlatabiliriz”.

 

Bu Şubat ayındaydı. Konuya aşina olan KNC’li bir yetkili de şöyle bir açıklamada bulundu: “Nerede görüşeceksiniz? Bölgede mi yoksa Kuzeydoğu Suriye’nin dışında mı?” “Bölgede, Amerikan heyetinin bulunduğu ve Haseke barajının yakınında bir yerde. Hemen dışında, Haseke ve M4 yolu arasında, Derbesiye-Haseke kesişiminde bir yerde buluştuk”.

 

Ancak PYD ve KNC arasındaki farklılıklar her zaman çok büyüktü. Özünde de uzlaşmaya vardırılması mümkün değildi. Belki de en büyük sorun KNC, Esed karşıtı iken PYD’nin karşıt olmamasıydı. Kamışlı ve Haseke’de rejimin önemli askerî tutunma noktaları buluyor. Haseke’nin tüm etnik gruplarını kapsayan aktivistlere ve siyasetçilerine göre rejim istihbaratı bölgeyi hiçbir zaman terk etmedi. Süryani bir siyaset adamı “Operasyonlarını karargahlardan yürütmüyorlar, evlerinden yürütüyorlar” diyor. Kamışlı’da yaşayan bir Kürt kadın aktivist yazara yaptığı açıklamada Facebook’taki paylaşımları yüzünden PYD ve rejim görevlilerinin evine geldiklerini ifade ediyor. PYD, Amude ve diğer yerlerdeki Esed karşıtı gösterileri bastırdı. Haziran 2013’te Amude’deki gösterilerde (Suriyeli bir gazeteciye göre) yedi gösterici öldürüldü. Amude’de yaşayan KNC’li siyasetçi Abdülhalim Beşar’a göre öldürülenler arasında KDP-S ve Yekiti üyeleri ve destekçileri bulunuyordu. Yakın zamanda PYD bunun için özür diledi -en azından kabul etti- ancak ne kimse tutuklandı ne de mahkemeye çıkarıldı. KNC kaynaklarına göre PYD bazı KNC’li politikacıları ve aktivistleri rejime teslim etti.

 

Yıllar geçmesine rağmen PYD ve KNC arasındaki farklılıklar azalmadı: Mişel Temo ve Nasreddin Burhek gibi çok sayıda KNC’li siyasetçi ve aktivist PYD ya da PKK tarafından öldürüldü ya da kayboldukları söylendi. Halihazırdaki KNC baş müzakerecisi Muhammed İsmail’in hem meslektaşı hem de yakın arkadaşı olan Nasreddin Burhek vuruldı. Burhek, Kamışlı’da kaldığı hastanede arkadaşı İsmail’e failin PKK olduğunu söyledi. İsmail de 2016-2017 yılları arasında 6 ay hapis yattı ve şimdi onu hapse atanlarla bir anlaşma yapmak zorunda. KNC ofisleri kapatıldı, bazıları da yağma edildi ve yakıldı. İşte bu yüzden KNC, her ne kadar izinleri olsa da ofislerini açmaya korkuyor. Ofis sahipleri ise buraları yeniden KNC’ye kiralamaktan çekiniyor. Bazı KNC’li siyasetçiler ve aktivistler hâlâ kayıp. KNC onlara ne olduğunu bilmek istiyor ancak PYD onları elinde tuttuğunu reddediyor. Kamışlı’daki SDG sözcüzü, o listedekinin rejim subayı olduğunu söyledi. Yazara açıklama yapan bir KNC lideri: “Onların öldüğüne eminiz” dedi.

 

Kısacası, KNC (Suriyeli Kürt gazeteci ve aktivistler de) PYD’nin Kandil’deki Suriyeli olmayan kadrolarının emirlerini yerine getirdiğine ve onların kendilerince ayrı bir devrimleri olduğuna inanıyor.

 

PYD, üçüncü bir yolu olduğunu savunuyor. Ne rejimle ne de muhalefetle birlikte olduklarını belirterek Suriye’nin tümü için bir demokratik projeleri olduğunu söylüyorlar (Aldar Xelil, Syria TV). Buna cevap olarak KNC: “Suriye muhalefetinin zaten tüm Suriye için bir demokrasi projesi var, PYD’ninkine ihtiyacımız yok. Her şeyden önce biz Suriyeliyiz, Kürt olmak ikinci sırada geliyor”.6 Haber videosunu seyretmek için tıklayınız

 

Suriye Kürtleri, Alevilerden sonra Suriye’deki ikinci büyük azınlık. Suriye rejimi vermediğinden net bir istatistik paylaşmak zor. CIA’in hazırladığı Factbook’a7 CIA Factbook’a ulaşmak için tıklayınız göre, Kürtler Suriye nüfusunun yüzde onunu teşkil ediyor.

 

“Irak, İran ya da Türkiye’nin aksine Suriye’deki Kürtler çoğunluğu Kürtlerden oluşan coğrafi olarak bağlı tek bir bölgeye sahip değiller. Suriye’nin kuzeyindeki sınır hattında birçok bölge önceleri geniş bir Kürt nüfusunu barındırıyordu. Ancak 1960’lardan itibaren Suriye’nin kuzey sınırı hattında bir “Arap kuşağı” oluşturmaya dayanan Baasçı Araplaştırma politikası neticesinde bu bölgede Araplar çoğunluk haline getirildi. Suriye Savaşı sırasında PYD, kuzeydeki Arap nüfusu üzerinde “etnik temizlik” yapmakla meşguldü”.8 Bkz:Nikolaos van Dam, Destroying a Nation, (2017), s. 62

 

Suriye Kürtleri başlıca üç bölgede yaşıyor: Afrin, Kobani, Türkiye-Irak sınırı yakınındaki Cezire ve Halep ve Şam havalisi. Cezire’de Araplar, Süryaniler, Süryani Çerkesler, Türkmenler, Yezidiler ve Ermeniler bulunmaktadır. Rejim, yıllar boyunca Suriyelilerin çoğunu kaçmak ve göç etmek zorunda bıraktı ancak Kürt bölgelerine ciddi manada saldırmadı. IŞİD, Kobani’ye ve Kuzey’deki diğer kasabalara saldırdı. Yakın zamanda Türkler Kürt bölgelerini (Afrin, Resülayn) alarak, çok sayıda Kürt’ün bu bölgelerden kaçmasına sebep oldu. Kürtler, YPG’nin zorunlu askerlik uygulamasını dayattığı bölgelerden de kaçtılar. Halihazırda YPG ve SDG’nin kontrolü altında bulunan bölgelerdeki nüfusun %70’i Arap: Deyrezzor, Rakka, Tabka, Menbiç ve diğer bölgeler. Bu durum başka bir soruyu gündeme getiriyor: Araplar neden görüşmelerde yer almıyor? Mazlum Abi Arap bölgelerinde dolaşıyor. Ancak bölgenin en büyük aşireti olan Ukeydat aşireti temsilcileri, diğer aşiret temsilcileri de yazara yaptıkları açıklamalarda YPG ve SDG tarafından yönetilmeyi asla kabul etmeyeceklerini söyledi. Bazı aşiretler bu konuda bölünmüş görünüyor; bir diğer büyük aşiret Bakkara ve destekçileri gibi.

 

“Başlangıçta Türkiye, PYD’nin rejime ya da IŞİD’e karşı savaşmasını önemsemedi. Ancak ne zaman ki gelişmeler PYD’nin lehine dönmeye başladı ve PYD kuzey Suriye’nin büyük bölümünü ele geçirdi, o zaman Ankara PYD’yi Türkiye’ye karşı mutlak güvenlik tehdidi olarak görmeye başladı”.9 Muhammed İsmail ile röportaj

 

Kürtlerin siyasi faaliyetleri ve KNC partilerine bir bakalım. İlk Suriyeli Kürt partisi, KDP-S ( Kürdistan Demokratik Partisi-Suriye) 1957’de kuruldu. KDP-S halen KNC içerisindeki en büyük partidir.

 

KNC (Kürt Ulusal Konseyi) 27 Ekim 2011’de kuruldu. Suriye Kürtleri arasındaki görüşmelerin baş müzakerecisi Muhammed İsmail, partinin siyasi danışmanıdır. İsmail, Mazlum Abdi ve Amerikalılar ile Haseke dışında gerçekleştirilen görüşmede KNC heyetinde bulunuyordu. 2011 yılında kurulduğunda KNC’nin ilk başkanı olan ve o dönemde Kamışlı’da bulunan Abdulhekim Beşar ise bugün sürgünde yaşamaktadır. Zaman içerisinde, başka ayrılıklar yaşandı ve partiler oluştu. Bazıları Hazım Derviş gibi daha rejime yakın iken Yekiti gibi daha radikalleri de ortaya çıktı. “Yekiti (Birlik)10 KNC bünyesindeki ikinci büyük parti. Liderlerinden biri olan İbrahim Biro, sınırda PYD tarafından tutuklandı ve ardından serbest bırakıldı uzun zaman önce ikiye ayrıldı: Yekiti Şeyh Ali ve diğer Yekiti. Yakın zamanlarda diğer Yekiti de bölündü: Fuad Aliko, İbrahim Biro, Süleyman Oso bir yanda Hasan Salih ve grubu diğer yanda” diyor Suriyeli Kürt bir avukat.

 

Syria TV’de yayınlanan son röportajında Fuad Aliko: “Hakkımızda çıkan Etilaf koalisyonundan ayrılıp Suriye muhalefeti ile bağlarımızı kopardığımız sızıntıları doğru değildir.11 Etilaf, Suriye muhalefetindeki ana gruptur Biz Esed rejimi ve İran ile ilişkilerimizi kestik. Suriye muhalefetinin bir parçasıyız, Suriye devriminin bir parçasıyız. Arapların, Türkmenlerin, Süryanilerin ve diğerlerinin görüşmelerde yer almasını istiyoruz” açıklamasında bulundu.

 

Yekiti’den İbrahim Biro, zamanın Amerikan büyükelçisi Robert Ford ve Fransız mevkidaşının kendisinden PYD’yi 2014’teki Cenevre görüşmelerine davet etmesini istediklerini ancak PYD’nin muhalefet heyetinin bir parçası olmayı reddederek bu teklifi geri çevirdiğini aktardı.12 Rena Netjes, sayfaya erişmek için tıklayınız

Suriye’de PKK ve PYD

PKK lideri Abdullah Öcalan, 1980 yılında Suriye’ye Kobani’den girdi. Şam yakınlarında Duma’da ofisi vardı. Türkiye’nin PKK lideri üzerinden tehditleri yüzünden Suriye, Öcalan’ı sınır dışı etti. PKK’nın kurucularından Cemil Bayık, Washington Post’taki yazısında: “1999 yılında, Türk yetkilileri PKK lideri Abdullah Öcalan’ı Kenya’da ele geçirdi, bu ABD tarafından desteklenen bir operasyondu. İmralı adasında müebbet hapis cezasına çarptırıldı, yaklaşık 20 yıldır burada tek başına mahpus” yazıyordu.13 Now is the moment for peace between Kurds and the Turkish state. Let’s not waste it, Washington Post, 2019, yazıya ulaşmak için tıklayınız

 

“2011 yılında gösteriler sırasında bir gün, bunlardan bir fayda elde edilemeyeceğini gördük. Neden? Sunniler ve Şiiler arasında ne olacağını biliyorduk”. Ekim ayında, Resulayn’daki bir PYD temsilcisi yazar ile Esed karşıtı gösteriler hakkındaki görüşlerini paylaştı: “2011 öncesine bir bakalım. PYD, Suriye ve Türkiye’de yasaklıydı. KNC ve diğer partiler de onlarla birlikteydi. Cuma günü insanlar camiden çıktı ve bir saat boyunca “Allahu Ekber, Allahu Ekber” diye bağırdılar. Sonra bitirdiler, bu onlar için yeterliydi. Oradan ayrıldılar ve bir yerlerde yemek yediler. Bir sonraki hafta yine aynı şeyi yaptılar. Bu şüphesiz devrim değildir. Üstelik Devrim’in doğduğu yer camilerdi, ancak dindar olmak devrimin kendisi değildir. Bir fikir olmalı. PYD bir fikirdir ve sahadadır. Bizim bütünlüklü bir vizyonumuz var ve YPG koruma gücüdür, savunma gücüdür. Topluma baktığımızda Araplar, Süryaniler, Kürtler var; bunların bir arada toplanması. Bunun PYD ile bir bağı yok”.

PYD Nasıl Bu Kadar Güçlü Hale Geldi?

Suriyeli bir gazeteci yazara yaptığı açıklama gelişmeleri şöyle aktardı: “2011’de PYD, Suriye’nin kuzeyinde Türkiye sınırına yakın Kürtlerin çoğunlukta olduğu 3 bölgeyi kontrol etmeye başladı. Bunu birçok nedenden ötürü yaptı. İlk olarak, Abdullah Öcalan’ın halkların kardeşliği hakkındaki öğretisine ve felsefesine dayanıyorlardı. Kandil’de farklı ülkelerden gelmiş ve Kuzey Irak’taki dağlarda 10-20 yıldır Türkiye’ye karşı savaşan savaşçıların kulaklarında bu öğreti yankılanıyordu. Bölgedeki bazı ülkeler de buna destek verdiler. Irak Kürdistan Bölgesi, İran ve Türkiye’deki hükümetler 30’dan fazla belki de 40 yıldır dağlarda olan bu savaşçılardan kurtulmanın iyi olacağını düşündüler”.

Suriyeli gazeteci sözlerine şöyle devam etti: “Irak Kürdistan Bölgesi onları kontrol etmiyor. Savaşçılar Suriye ve Türkiye’den Kandil’e gidiyordu, fakat şimdilerde Türkiye ve Kandil’den Suriye’ye gidiyorlar. Bu ülkeler onları sorun olarak görüyor. Bu hükümetler tüm bu savaşçıların Suriye’ye gitmesi durumunda sorunlarının biraz olsun azalacağını gördüler. Onlarca yıl zorlu dağlık arazi şartlarında savaş eğitimi almış bu savaşçıların, yapının kontrolü ele almasında büyük bir etkisi vardı. KNC, örgütsel ve askerî açıdan zayıf. Bölgedeki halk, Kürt yönetimi, Kürt federalizmi rüyasıyla yaşıyor. Bölgede Kürt bayrağının yükselmesi partinin onu kontrol etmesine imkân tanıdı. Bu halkın IŞİD’e karşı mücadelede yaptığı fedakarlığı göz ardı edemeyiz. Ancak IŞİD’e karşı verilen bu mücadele de uluslararası koalisyonun desteği olmadan asla mümkün olmazdı”.

 

Aynı gazeteci PYD’nin gelişimi hakkında şunları aktardı: “PKK’nın Hafız Esad’ın ve İran’ın sıcak kolları arasında kurulduğunu biliyoruz. Eğitim kampları, Hizbullah ve İran’ın himayesi altındaki Lübnan’ın Şii bölgelerindeydi. Orada Hizbullah ve Emel’in kampları on yıllardır aktifti. Hafız Esad ve İran ile bağlantıları, 1980’lerdeki aynı döneme denk geliyordu. Yine de PYD olduklarında ısrar ediyorlar ama ideolojileri Öcalan’dan. Her şey İran’la, Hafız Esad ve müttefikleriyle iyi ilişkiler içinde olduklarını gösteriyor. Bu önemli bir nokta… IŞİD Kobani’ye girdiğinde PYD’nin Kürt sokaklarındaki karşılığı çok zayıftı, bunun da birçok sebebi vardı. Başlıca sebebi, PYD 27 Haziran 2013’te Amude’de düzenlenen rejim karşıtı gösterilerde 7 kişiyi öldürmüştü. Kürtleri katlettiler ve devrimi destekleyen Kürt gençler üzerinde baskı oluştular ve Kürt bölgelerinde devrim bayrağının asılmasını yasakladılar. PYD’nin devrim yanlısı olmadığı açıktı. PYD, Suriye devrimini destekleyen Kürt gençlerine baskı uyguladı, onları sindirdi; ya göz altına aldı ya da onları Suriye’den gitmeye zorladı”

 

Harriet Allsopp, Suriye Kürtleri isimli kitabında “Bağımsız haber kaynakları ve Türk istihbaratı Esed’in yeniden Türkiye içindeki PKK faaliyetlerini desteklediğini ve PYD’nin Suriye içinde rahatça hareket etmesine izin verdiğini iddia etti. Bu iddialar Arap muhalefetinin yanında Türkiye’deki Kürt toplulukları tarafından da dile getiriliyordu” yazıyor.14 Harriet Allsopp, The Kurds of Syria, s.208.

 

“Bu iddiaları destekleyen delillerde şu beş nokta öne çıkıyor: İlk olarak, PYD lideri Salih Müslim 2010 yılında Suriye’den sürüldü. Ardından Irak Kürdistan Bölgesi’nde PKK kamplarında kaldı ve 2011 yılında Suriye’ye döndü. Aktarılan bilgilere göre yanında yaklaşık 2.000 PKK gerilla savaşçısı vardı ve rejim buna müdahale etmedi. İkincisi, PYD başından beri açıkça rejimin düşmesini talep etmedi ve onunla diyaloga açık kaldı. Üçüncüsü, Suriye yetkililerinin hiçbir müdahalesi olmadan Kürtçe dil okulları açtı. Dördüncüsü, Afrin’de düzenlenen rejim karşıtı gösterilere engel olmak ve gösterileri sekteye uğratmakla suçlandı. Son olarak, kontrol noktaları inşa etti ve rejim güvenlik güçlerinin bulunduğu Kürt bölgelerinde güvenliği sağlamaya başladı. Kürt kasaba ve bölgelerinin kontrolünü ele geçirmesi hızlı ve barışçıl olmuştu. Burada şüphe uyandıran nokta, ÖSO’dan alınan bölgelerin güvenliğinin sağlanması ve Suriye’de mezhepsel çatışmanın körüklenmesi için Suriyeli yetkililerle anlaşma yapmalarıydı. Tüm bu noktalar PYD tarafından yalanlandı. Parti kategorik olarak Esed rejimi ya da PKK ile olan bağlantıları reddetti ancak Öcalan’ın demokratik konfederalizm teorisine yakınlıklarını reddetmediler” diyor Allsopp kitabının aynı bölümünde.15 Allsopp, s 208-209

 

Clingendael’in PYD ile ilgili gelecek raporunda yazar ve Erwin van Veen bu konuyu daha derinlemesine ele alacak.

 

Bu bağlamda, Abdulhakim Beşar’ın KDP-S ile yapılan ilk görüşmeye dair şahitliğine bir bakalım16 KDP-S, KNC içindeki en büyük partidir : “İşin aslı PYD ile devrimin başlamasından sonraki ilk görüşme Nisan 2011’de gerçekleşti. Ben o zamanlar hâlâ Suriye’de yaşıyordum ve bir muayenehanem vardı. Kamışlı’da bir doktorum. Salih Müslim, o zamanlar PYD genel sekreteriydi ve beni ziyaret etti. Bana iki parti arasında iş birliğini sağlayıp sağlayamayacağımızı sordu. Ben de o dönemde KDP-S başkanıydım. Stratejik bir biçimde iş birliği yapıp yapamayacağımızı sordu. Ona tek bir soru sordum: Şam rejimi tarafından hakkınızda siyasi ve adlî iki dosya var ve aranıyorsunuz, bunu bana nasıl sorabiliyorsunuz? Beni ziyaret etmek için Suriye’ye geldi. Yurt dışındaydı ve Suriye dışında da muhaberat tarafından takip ediliyordu. Kandil dağlarında kaldı. Beni ziyaret ettiğinde devrimin başlarındaydık, sadece birkaç hafta geçmişti. ‘Rejim tarafından aranıyorsunuz ve Suriye’ye tekrar nasıl girdiniz?’ Bana ‘Saklanıyorum’ dedi. O anda pencereyi açtım ve dışarıda güvenlik subayı olduğunu söyledim. ‘Bir tanesi 24 saat orada duruyor. Buna rağmen nasıl girdin?’ O dönemde, Nisan 2011’de, her yer Suriye rejiminin tam kontrolü altındaydı. Salih Müslim’in ziyaretinin ardından, hâlâ Nisan ayındaydık, başka biri beni ziyarete geldi. Bana Aldar Xalil olduğunu söyledi; PKK merkez komitesi üyesi yani liderlerden biri. Salih Müslim ile stratejik biçimde birlikte çalışmamı teklif etti. Bana ‘Bir televizyon kanalı açalım. Taraflar olarak ikimizin de işine yarar’ dedi. Ona da aynı soruyu sordum: ‘Rejim tarafından iki dosyadan dolayı aranıyorsun. Buraya nasıl girdin? Her sokakta güvenlik birimleri varken’. Cevabı tatmin edici değildi ve muayenehaneden ayrıldı. Onunla çalışmayı reddettim”. Abdulhekim Beşar gibi başka KNC’li siyasetçiler de yazara rejimin görüşmek üzere onlara nasıl yaklaştığını anlattı. Bir KNC’li yetkili ‘Rejimin bize haklarımızı vermeyeceğini bilecek kadar rejim hakkında tecrübemiz vardı” açıklamasında bulundu.

 

Bir Süryani politikacı yazara yaptığı açıklamada: “Suriye’deki Kürtlerin sorununa bir gün çözüm bulabileceğinizi düşünüyorsunuz. Bu sorunu, Türkiye ve PKK arasındaki problemi çözmeden bir çözüme kavuşturmanız mümkün değil; Suriye, Irak ya da Türkiye gibi değil.
Irak’ta Barzani ve Talabani’nin partileri var. Diğer yanda ise PKK ve Apo. Suriye’deki Kürtlerin asıl problemi Apo ve Barzani arasındaki rekabettir. Suriye Kürtlerini kim kontrol edecek? Kandil akımı çekişmeyi kazanıyor. Aslında Suriye topraklarında üç Kürt gücü var: PYD (ve ona yakın tüm yapılanmalar), KNC ve yeni Kürt ittifakı yani Hamid Derviş.17 Hamid Derviş 24 Ekim 2019’da vefat etti Dolayısıyla, Suriye’deki Kürt sorununa getirilecek gerçek çözüm, bana göre her şeyden önce AKP ile Abdullah Öcalan ile barış görüşmelerinin yeniden başlatılmasıdır. Bu doğrultuda adımlar atılmazsa, bence asla bir çözüme ulaşılmayacak”.

 

Aynı Süryani politikacı PYD ve KNC arasındaki görüşmeleri şöyle anlattı: “PYD ve KNC arasında üç anlaşma yapıldı (Erbil ve Duhok anlaşmaları). Elbette bunlar Mesud Barzani’nin himayesi altında yapıldı, fakat başarısız oldu. Üç noktada başarısız olundu; biri askerî ve biri ekonomikti… ve PYD/YPG şunu kabul etmedi: başlangıçta pay 50/50 idi sonra 70/30 oldu. Mutabık oldukları tek şey girişimin kendisiydi… yani işleyişin yönetim veçhesi. Ancak en önemli bahisler ilk ikisiydi yani askerî ve ekonomik bahisler. Ve o dönemde, PYD’nin kontrolünde Simelka ve Yarubiye’de iki kontrol noktası vardı”.

 

20 Haziran’da Syria TV’de yayınlanan “Siyaset Salonu” adlı programda bir Arap temsilci bazı önemli noktaları ve soruları dile getirdi: “Fransa ve ABD, bölgede PYD’yi desteklemek için Araplar, KNC ve diğerleri üzerinde baskı kuruyor. Bu zamana kadar petrol gelirlerine ne olduğuna dair bir fikrimiz yoktu (Rumeylan ve Deyrezzor). PYD’nin Devrimle nasıl ilgilendiğini biliyoruz. Tamamen Arap olan Deyrezzor ve neredeyse tamamına yakını Arap olan Rakka’nın yönetimi için neden Kürtler arasında görüşmeler yürütülüyor? Eğer 2014 yılındaki Duhok anlaşması gelecek görüşmeler için rehber olacaksa neden Duhok şimdiye kadar doğrudan uygulanmadı?”

 

Kobani’de yaşayan bir Kürt avukat yaptığı açıklamada: “Hâlâ bir şey değişmiş değil. Eğer değişseydi, onlar hakkında sızıntılar olmazdı. İlk aşama, ortak siyasi bağlayıcılığı olan bir deklarasyon ile nihayete erdi. İkinci aşama yönetimle ve savunma meselesi ilgili. Bu durum Suriye halkının diğer bileşenlerinde endişe uyandırıyor: PKK ne olacak? Şu ana kadar PYD/SDG, ne PKK ile bağlantısını netleştirmeye ne de kadrolarının Suriye’den ayrılışına dair bir açıklama yayınladı. Rakka ve Deyrezzor’un kaderi net değil: Anlaşma sadece Kürt bölgeleri hakkında mı yoksa PYD ve SDG’nin kontrolü altındaki bölgeler hakkında mı olacak? Deyrezzor ve Kürtler arasındaki ilişki ne? Bu konu birçok endişeyi beraberinde getiriyor. Nihaî anlaşma yok, bunlar daha taslak diyorlar. Amerikalılar, PYD ve KNC arasındaki bu taslaklar gizliyse o zaman anlaşmaları da gizli olacak. Ancak bana göre bu mesele tüm halkla, Cezire’deki tüm bileşenlerle ve doğrudan tüm Suriye halkıyla bağlantılı; Kuzeydoğu Suriye’nin petrol zenginliği. Dolayısıyla bu anlaşmalar hakkında ve tüm olan bitenle ilgili çok daha fazla bilgi olması gerekli. Ancak bu zamana kadar, bu gerçekleşmedi. Her şey gizli saklı oluyor. Etilaf KNC’yi doğrudan destekledi ancak bu zamana kadar KNC hiçbir soruyu kamuoyu önünde cevaplamadı” dedi.

 

KNC’den İbrahim Biro bir açıklamasında18 Arapça bilen okuyucularımız bu hikâyenin tamamını içeren televizyon programı izleyebilmek için buraya tıklayabilir “Barzani üç kere denedi ancak başarısız oldu. Maalesef PYD, ittifak için gerekli olan en temel noktalara bağlı kalmadı. Görüşmelerin başarıya ulaşması için PYD’nin gerçekten bir şeyler önermesi gerekiyor” dedi.

 

Kürt Demokratik Eşitlik Partisi’nden Kamışlı’da yaşayan kıdemli KNC’li siyasetçi Nemut Davud’a ikinci tur görüşmelerin ne zaman başlayacağını sordum. Davud’un 9 Temmuz’da verdiği cevap şöyle:


“16 Haziran’dan sonra KNC ve PYD’nin öncülüğündeki yirmi Kürt partisinden oluşanUlusal Birlik Partileri arasındaki uzlaşılara dair açıklama yayınlandı. İkinci tur henüz başlamadı. KNC ile nezaret eden taraf arasında (ya Amerikalılar ya da SDG liderliğinden Mazlum Abdi) bir iletişim var, aramızda da bir iletişim var. İkinci tur için hazırlıklar var”.

 

KNC heyetinden bir yetkili 23 Temmuz Çarşamba günü yazara yaptığı açıklamada “PYD ve KNC arasındaki (gizli) diyalog ya da müzakerelerin ikinci turu geçtiğimiz hafta yeniden başladı” dedi ve ekledi “Bu görüşmeler Dohuk Anlaşmasına göre üç konu etrafında sürdürülecek. İlk konu yetki, ikincisi yönetim ve üçüncüsü de askerî meseleler olacak. İlk konu ile başladık. Şu ana kadar doğrudan görüşmeler olmadı. Heyetler arasında doğrudan (yüz yüze) bir toplantı gerçekleştirilmedi. Amerika’nın arabuluculuğunda evrak ve fikir alışverişinde bulunuldu. İlk taslak metin üzerinde çalışmak üzere doğrudan bir toplantı gerçekleştirmeye çok yakınız. Çok fazla beklememiz gerekeceğini düşünmüyorum; belki birkaç gün içinde gerçekleşebilir”.

 

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Genel

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT FOR THE SYRIAN KURDISH PARTIES TO UNITE?

by Rena Netjes
written by Rena Netjes
Why is it so difficult for Syrian Kurdish parties to unite?
Rena Netjes

Rena Netjes, Arabist and currently researching Northeast Syria for The Clingendael Institute

“The second phase of the (secret) dialogue, or negotiations between the PYD and KNC resumed about a week ago” a member of the KNC delegation told the author on Wednesday 23 July. “These negotiations will go according the Dohuk Agreement1 Divided Syrian Kurds reach deal in face of ISIS threat, Rudaw, click for news along three subjects. The first subject will be authority, the second subject will be the administration and the third subject will be the military matters. We started with the first subject. Until now, there were no direct negotiations. A direct (face to face) meeting between the delegations hasn’t happened yet. There is an exchange of papers and ideas with the help of an American go-between. But we arrived at a closer point to be able to have a direct meeting to discuss a first draft paper. I don’t think it will take a long time to wait; maybe within only a few days it will happen,” he said.

 

For decades, the Syrian Kurds have been deprived of their rights, on top of the repression all Syrians suffered. But, moreover, after almost ten years into the Syrian Conflict, and after the ISIS threats and after the Turkish interventions in Afrin and Northeast Syria, the Syrian Kurdish parties are still not united. Why not? In this article, I will attempt to answer that question. And I will also show that, because of the aims both parties stand for, it is in a way impossible to unite. Realism tells us only some superficial deal is the only thing achievable.

 

The Americans started to support YPG (Peoples’ Protection Units) militarily by weapon droppings to fight ISIS in Kobani. Others, too, like the Peshmergas were sent in from Iraq via Turkey and a Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigade from Aleppo helped. “YPG has one line of control,” a US diplomat told the author, “that’s why it’s so easy to work with them.” All developed in the current SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) led by the YPG control covering about one third of Syria, and most of the population in SDF area are Arabs. The Arabs, mainly living in Raqqa and Deir al-Zour areas, are not involved in this secretly held talks, they seem to be just guessing what will be decided for them; the same goes for other smaller components in the area, like Assyrians (Christians).

 

“We are proud of the joint work of the Kurdish National Council (KNC) and the Kurdish National Unity parties, as their work to reach an initial agreement is a source of joy,” SDF commander Mazloum Abdi tweeted on 16 June.2 This translation was provided by ANHA, a PYD outlet.

 

But the day after, the main KNC negotiator in the intra-Syrian-Kurdish talks denies in a WhatsApp voice message there was an agreement: “These are understandings, but there’s not an agreement. One understanding is that we accomplished a political vision in a joint binding way and we got to an understanding together that the Duhok Agreement is the base from where we built upon for a dialogue in the future and the details of the dialogue to get good results from.”3 This joint declaration can be found here

 

Why can’t the two rival blocs just unite?

From interviews with KNC leaders when asking them what the differences are between them and the Democratic Union party (PYD), the following eight arguments they share:

 

Firstly, we are political parties, whose struggle to defend the Kurdish people’s existence and rights in Syria began in 1957 and continues to this day. Our struggle focuses here. Secondly, we are against the blood shedding dictatorial regime in Syria. We stand by the Syrian National Opposition and we seek a political solution. Thirdly, we adopt the political and democratic method in dealing with the Syrian society, so we stay far away from weapons and repression. Our vision is clear and overt to everyone. Fourthly, the Kurdish movement and the Kurdish National Council have a clear position regarding the national opposition and their political struggle is clear within the cadres of the Kurdish community. Fifthly, the PYD is an emergency party which represents the PKK and has no agenda related to the rights of the Kurdish people. It was only established to provide logistical support to the PKK and to fulfill the Kurdish Workers Party’s agenda. Moreover, the PYD doesn’t abstain from any means to achieve this goal. Sixthly, together with the regime, the PYD arranged the oppression of the Kurdish movement and the claims of the Kurdish and Syrian people, and it supports the regime by protecting it and its economic foundations. Seventhly, the only means of the PYD are arms and repression. It neutralizes the other options and refuses to cooperate with anyone. The PYD hides its agenda from everyone, even from its comrades and executives. Lastly, they made use of murdering, kidnapping and threats to prevent the spread of the Kurdish movement. They were the regime accomplices and they all are the enemies of the Syrian people.

 

There are more grievances and obstacles that raise from the interviews, such as the KNC military wing (there are no exact statistics, but Syrian Kurdish sources estimate 3,000-4,000 men), the Rosh Peshmerga (the Kurdish FSA as one of the KNC politicians described), stay outside Northeast Syria; PYD/YPG don’t allow them to enter the area, so they’re still in Iraqi Kurdistan. Many KNC leaders have been expelled from the area and can’t return. The same goes for KNC activists, and Assyrian (Christian) and Arab opponents.

 

Several KNC politicians have asked the PYD and YPG to denounce their ties with the PKK in public, but this has never happened. Mazloum Abdi, Aldar Xelil and Salih Muslim are known PKK militants who spent years of combat training in Qandil. The PKK is labeled as a terrorist organization4 US Department of State, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau Of Counterterrorısm, click for page in the US, EU and Turkey.

 

In interviews with PYD politicians, they say they follow the same ideology without being connected. They also have grievances: “The KNC and the other parties that are with them went out at Friday, the people went out at Friday from the mosque, and they say ‘Allah akbar, Allah akbar’. They finish. Until that time becomes one hour. And until the next week. The Revolution is not this, of course. Beyond this, the Revolution from the mosques and the use of religion, that is not a revolution. There should be an idea. PYD is an idea, we’re present on the ground, with a complete vision, and YPG is our protection force, our defense. And from the society itself, we have Arabs, Assyrians/Syriacs, Kurds; a gathering from this society. It does not have a relation with PYD. And, we know that this will end in a fight between Shia and Sunni.”

 

“We’re on the ground, they’re outside Syria,” PYD/Tevdem’s Aldar Xelil said on Syria TV.  KNC leader Ibrahim Biro, when answering the question why he is outside (Erbil): “They arrested and expelled me from Northeast Syria and threatened to kill me, in case I would return to Northeast Syria.”5 For those among you who understand Arabic, here’s the full TV broadcast covering this story: الجزيرة السورية والمصير المنتظر | الصالون السياسي, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqtRuUF-Ovs&feature=youtu.be

 

The SDF military leader Mazloum Abdi came with an initiative to unite the Syrian Kurdish ranks after the Turkish intervention in October 2019 in (YPG controlled, Arabic) Tel Abyad and Ra’s al-Ayn in Northeast Syria (YPG controlled mixed Arabic Kurdish and some Circassians, Syriacs and others). From the many previous attempts to unite the two rival blocs, insiders who helped facilitating previous talks told the author that YPG/PYD are not really willing to make concessions towards the KNC. A year ago, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a fruitless conference with both parties. Other talks took place in other places, according to participants also in The Netherlands.

 

“There is pressure on them (SDF), Turkish pressure from the moment Turkey entered Ra’s al-Ayn and Tel Abyad. And international agreements, a Turkish-Russian agreement, and a Turkish-American agreement. Mazloum Kobani went thirty-two kilometers further, still near the border. And the Americans returned from Iraq to Qamishli, and a bit west from Qamishli via Pesh Khabour. In Amouda are the Russians. When Mazloum saw the situation was bad, he asked for a unification of the Kurdish position. The Americans pressurized us (KNC) even more. From a long time already until now. I told the Americans, we need to build trust, to open up the offices and allow political activities, and to discover where the missing persons are. They try to cover up; that is not building trust, if they were trustworthy, they’d say: ‘We killed them,’” A KNC politician told the author.

 

“They killed them, the eight that are missing?” “Yes, this is what we believe.” The Americans said that they know the file of the missing and some mistakes the PYD made, but “we need to find a way. We want a next step. Are you willing to start a dialogue or not?” And to be honest, America is an important country, we are not able to say: No. But we want to know to what extent the SDF are serious. To what extent can SDF pressure PYD and let the PYD accept the agreement? And in principal, maybe from next week, we can start a meeting. ”This was in February. “Where will you meet? In the area, or outside Northeast Syria”? “In the area, at the location where the American delegation stays and near the Hasaka dam, just outside, between Hasaka and the M4 road, there is junction Derbasiye – Hasaka, a location where we meet,” according to a KNC politician familiar with the matter.

 

But the differences between the PYD and the KNC have always been huge and –  in essence – unreconcilable, with perhaps the biggest problem that the KNC is anti-Assad and the PYD isn’t. In Qamishli and Hasaka, the regime has significant military footholds, and according to activists and politicians from all ethnic groups of the Hasaka province, the regime intelligence has never left the area: “They don’t operate from their headquarters, but from their homes,” as an Assyrian politician pointed out. A female Kurdish activist in Qamishli told the author she gets visits from the PYD and from the regime about her posts on Facebook. The PYD has suppressed anti-Assad demonstrations such as in Amouda. According to Syrian Kurdish journalists, seven protestors were killed here in June, 2013. “Among them were KDP-S and Yekitee members and supporters, says KNC politician Abdel Hakim al-Bashar from Amouda. Recently, the PYD apologized for this – well, at least they acknowledged – but no one was arrested or put on trial. They also handed over some KNC politicians and activists to the regime, according to KNC sources.

 

The differences between PYD and KNC haven’t diminished over the years; several KNC politicians and activists, like Mashaal Tammo, and Nasreddine Burheik have been killed or have gone missing by PYD or PKK. Nasreddine Burheik, a colleague and close friend of the current main negotiator of the KNC, Mohamed Ismail, was shot, and he told Ismail in the Qamishli hospital the perpetrators were PKK. Burheik did not survive the assassination attempt. Many KNC politicians have been jailed or expelled from the area. Ismail himself was jailed for six months in 2016 and 2017. And now he has to make a deal with his jailers. The KNC offices have been closed, some have been ransacked and put on fire. This is a reason why the KNC is afraid to re-open them, even if they were allowed to do so. Office owners are hesitating to rent them out to KNC parties again, etc. Still a number of KNC politicians and activists are missing. The KNC wants to know what happened to them, but the PYD denies holding them. The SDC spokesperson in Qamishli said that on that list was a regime officer. A KNC leader told the author: They are dead for sure.

 

In short, the KNC (and also Syrian Kurdish journalists and activists) believes the PYD is carrying out orders from Qandil, from non-Syrians, and that they have their own revolution.

 

The PYD advocates they have a third way, that they are neither with the regime, nor with the opposition, and they say they have a democratic project for the whole of Syria (Aldar Xelil on Syria TV). The KNC responds as follows: “The Syrian opposition has a democracy project for whole Syria already, we don’t need a new PYD plan. First of all, we are Syrians, being Kurds comes second.”6 Watch the news clip here: الجزيرة السورية والمصير المنتظر الصالون السياسي, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqtRuUF-Ovs&feature=youtu.be

 

The Syrian Kurds are the second biggest minority in Syria, after the Alawites, although hard statistics are impossible to obtain because the Syrian regime does not give them.  According to the CIA Factbook 7 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html , the Kurds are about ten percent of the population.

 

“In contrast to Iraq, Iran or Turkey, the Syrian Kurds don’t have one single geographically connected area that is mainly populated by Kurds. Various Syrian border areas in the north, formerly inhabited to a great extent by Kurds, have since the 1960s become more heavily populated by Arabs who have settled there as part of the Ba’thist policy to Arabize the northern Syrian border areas, the so-called ‘Arab belt’. During the Syrian War, the PYD has been active in ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Arab population in the north.”8 Nikolaos van Dam, Destroying a Nation, (2017), p. 62 and Nikolaos van Dam, Destroying a Nation (2017), p.116/7

 

Syrian Kurds live mainly in three areas: Afrin, Kobani and in the Jezira near the Turkish and Iraqi border, and in quarters in Aleppo and Damascus. In the Jezira there are also Arabs, Assyrians, Syriacs Circassians, Turkmens, Yazidis, some Armenians and some from others. Over the years, the regime made most Syrians flee by far, but it did not really attack the Kurdish areas. ISIS did attack Kobani and other towns in the North. More recently, the Turks took over Kurdish (Afrin, Ra’s al-Ayn), causing many Kurds to flee from those areas. Where forced conscription of YPG occurred, young Kurds fled the area as well. Currently, about 70% of the population under YPG led SDF control are Arabs: Deir al-Zour, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and other areas. The latter raises another question:  Why aren’t the Arabs involved in the talks? Mazloum Abdi is touring these Arab areas, but representatives from the biggest Arab tribe the Oqeidat, as well as from other tribes, told the author they would never accept to be ruled by YPG led SDF. Some tribes are divided on the issue, like the other big tribe, al-Baggara, or go with whom has the authority.

 

“At first, Turkey did not mind the PYD fighting against the regime or against IS, but when developments turned in favour of the PYD, once it succeeded in conquering bigger parts of Northern Syria, the PYD came to be seen in Ankara as an imminent security threat against Turkey”9 An interview with Mohamed İsmail

 

Let’s turn to Kurdish political activity and the KNC parties. The first Syrian Kurdish party, Partiya Demukrata Kurdistan – Suriya (PDK-S) was established in 1957. It’s still the biggest party10 The National Relations Office of the PDK-S issues an important circular on the situation of stranded people in Syrian Kurdistan, https://www.arknews.net/en/node/20392 within the Kurdish National Council, with the majority of offices.

 

The KNC was established on 27 October, 2011. The main negotiator in the intra-Syrian-Kurdish talks, Ismail, is this party’s political advisor. He is part of the KNC delegation that met Mazloum Abdi and the Americans just outside Hasaka. The first KNC chairman, Abdul Hakim al-Bashar, who, in 2011, was still in Qamishli, now lives in exile. Over time, other split-offs and parties appeared, quite often keeping the same name. Some more leaning to the regime, like Hazem Darwish, and others more radical like Yekitee, which means Union in Kurdish.11 This is the second biggest party in the KNC. Ibrahim Biro, one of its leaders, was arrested and dropped at the border by PYD. “Yekitee broke up into two fractions a long time ago: Yekitee Sheikh Ali and another Yekitee. Now this later Yekitee also split up recently, in Yekitee Fuad Aliko, Ibrahim Biro, Suleyman Oso and on the other side Hasan Saleh and his group,” according to a Syrian Kurdish lawyer.

 

In a recent episode on Syria TV, Fuad Aliko said: “All these leaks about us leaving the Etilaf cut with the Syrian opposition are not true.12 Etilaf is the main Syrian opposition group We cut relations with the Assad regime, with Iran. We’re part of the Syrian opposition, we’re part of the Syrian Revolution. And we want the Arabs, Turkmens, Syriacs and others to be part of the talks.”13 Rena Netjest’s tweet feed, click for tweet

 

Yekitee’s Ibrahim Biro explains here14 We talked with the US ambassador @fordrs58 and the French ambassador… https://twitter.com/RenaNetjes/status/1224311793268535297?s=09 how the American ambassador at the time, Robert Ford, and his French colleague asked him to invite the PYD to the Geneva talks in 2014, and how the PYD refused to be part of the opposition delegation.

PKK and PYD in Syria

Abdallah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, entered Syria via Kobani in 1980. He had his office in Douma, near Damascus. After Turkey’s threats over the PKK leader in 1998, Syria expelled him. “In 1999, Turkish operatives captured PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya, in an operation supported by the United States. He was sentenced to life in prison on the island of Imrali, where he has been the sole inmate for nearly 20 years.” Cemal Bayyik, one of the founders of the PKK wrote in the Washington Post.15 Now is the moment for peace between Kurds and the Turkish state. Let’s not waste it, Cemil Bayik, 2019, click for news

 

“One day during these demonstrations in 2011, we saw that there was no benefit from them. Why? We knew what would happen between Sunna and Shia.” In October, a local PYD representative shared their perspective on the anti-Assad demonstrations with the author: “Let us go back to before 2011. The PYD was forbidden in Syria and Turkey. They go out at Friday, the people leave the mosque then and shout “Allah akbar, Allah akbar” for an hour long. Then they finish, it’s been enough. They leave and have a meal somewhere.  Another week passes by and then they go again. This is, of course, not the Revolution. On top of this, the Revolution had its birthplace in the mosques, but being religious is not a revolution in itself. There should be an idea. PYD is an idea, present on the ground. We have a complete vision, and YPG is the protection force, the defense force. And from the society itself, we have Arabs, Syriacs, Kurds; a gathering from this society. It has no link to PYD.”

How did the PYD become so powerful?

“In 2011, the PYD started to control the Kurdish majority areas in north Syria, three enclaves close to the Turkish border. They did so for several reasons. Firstly, it leans on the preaching and philosophy of Abdallah Öcalan concerning the brotherhood of the peoples. In the ears of the fighters from different countries in Qandil, who had been fighting for ten, twenty years in the mountains of Northern Iraq against Turkey, this preaching sounded gentle. It was a dream to have a kind of self-administration in the Kurdish region. And some countries in the region encouraged this. The governments of Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran and Turkey thought it was good to get rid of those fighters who’d been in the mountains for over thirty, perhaps forty years,” A Syrian journalist from the area told the author.

 

“The Iraqi Kurdistan government doesn’t control them. Fighters were always seen going from Syria and Turkey towards Qandil, but now they went from Turkey and Qandil to Syria. These countries considered them a problem. And these governments saw that, if all these fighters were going to Syria, this reversed north-south fighters’ migration would ease their problem a bit. These fighters, with dozens of years’ experience in combat training in difficult mountains circumstances, had a big influence on the organization to get control. The KNC was organizationally and militarily weak. The people in the area took over this dream of Kurdish rule, of Kurdish federalism. Raising the Kurdish flag in the area enabled the party to control it. We can’t deny those people brought huge sacrifices in the fight against ISIS. But this fight against ISIS would never have been possible without the support of the international coalition,” according to the journalist.

 

“We know that the PKK is established in the bosom of Hafez al-Assad and Iran. Their trainings camps were in the Shi’ite areas of Lebanon under the auspices of Hezbollah and Iran. The Hezbollah and Amal camps have been there for decades. Their connections with Hafez al-Assad and Iran go back to their same cradle the 1980s. Still, they persist they are PYD, but their ideology is from Öcalan. Everything points at their good connections with Iran and with the Bashar al-Assad and regime allies. This is an important point… the moment ISIS entered Kobani, the popularity of the PYD on the Kurdish streets was at its lowest ever for a number of reasons. The main one is that the PYD killed seven people who had organized an anti-regime demonstration in Amouda on June 27, 2013. Because of their massacring of Kurds and their suppression of Kurdish youngsters who supported the revolution, they forbade to raise the revolution flag in the Kurdish areas. It was clear the PYD wasn’t pro-revolution. The PYD pushed all the Kurdish youths in favor of the Syrian revolution, squeezing them, whether in detention or by forcing them to leave Syria,” says the Syrian local journalist.

 

“Independent reports and Turkish intelligence suggested Assad was again supporting PKK activities in Turkey and allowing the PYD to act freely in Syria. These allegations came both from the Arab opposition as well as from the Kurdish communities in Turkey themselves,” writes Harriet Allsopp in her book. 16 Harriet Allsopp, The Kurds of Syria: Political Parties and Identity in the Middle East, p. 208.

 

“The evidence that supports these accusations includes the five following details: Firstly, the PYD party leader, Salih Muslim, exiled from Syria in 2010 and then encamped with the PKK in the Kurdistan region of Iraq before returning to Syria in 2011, reportedly with as many as 2,000 PKK guerilla fighters, without regime intervention. Secondly, the PYD initially didn’t explicitly call for the fall of the regime and remained open to dialogue with it. Thirdly, it openly established a number of Kurdish language schools without interference from Syrian authorities. Fourthly, it was accused of preventing and disrupting protests against the regime in Afrin. Lastly, it erected checkpoints and began policing Kurdish areas in the presence of regime security services as its takeover of Kurdish towns and regions was peaceful and swift, raising suspicious that they had an agreement with the Syrian authorities to secure the areas from the FSA and to incite sectarian divisions within Syria.

 

Each point was refuted by the PYD. The party categorically denied any connections to the Assad regime or to the PKK, aside from an ideological affinity with Öcalan’s theory of democratic confederalism,”17 Allsopp, pp. 208/9.

 

In the upcoming Clingendael report on the PYD by Erwin van Veen and the author you will find a closer look into this matter.

 

In this regard, this is the eyewitness account by Abdul Hakim al-Bashar of the first meeting between the PDK-S (now in the KNC).18 The PDK-S  is the biggest party in the KNC that was to be established half a year later. “Really the first meeting with the PYD from the start of the revolution, was in April 2011. I was at the time still living in Syria, and I had a clinic. I am a doctor, in Qamishli. Salih Muslim was the Secretary of the PYD, visited me. He asked me if we could cooperate as two parties. I was the chairman of the party (PDK-S) at the time. And he asked if we could coordinate in a strategic way. I asked him one question: You are wanted by the Syrian regime in Damascus, how can you ask me this? He came to visit me in Syria. He had been abroad and was being followed by the security apparatus outside Syria. He stayed in the Qandil mountains. In the beginning, only a few weeks into the revolution, he visited me. ‘You are wanted by the regime and how did you enter Syria again?’ He told me: ‘I’m hiding.’ Then I opened the window and told him that there is a security officer. ‘And that one is standing there 24 hours per day. How did you even enter?’ At that time, April 2011, the Syrian regime was in totally full control of the whole area. A week after Salih Muslim’s visit, it was still in April, another person came to visit me. He told me he was Aldar Khalil, member of the PKK central committee, so one of the leaders. He also suggested to work with Salih Muslim in a strategic way. He said ‘Let’s open a TV channel. It can be a good idea we could both benefit from.’ I put him the same question: ‘You are wanted by the regime for two cases. How did you enter here? While the security apparatus is present in every street.’ His answer was weak and he left the clinic. I refused to work with him.”

 

KNC politicians, like Abdul Hakim al-Bashar also told the author how the regime approached them to meet. “We’ve had enough experience with the regime to know it won’t give us our rights at all,” a KNC politician told us.

 

“And if you think one day you can find a solution for the Kurdish Syrian problem in Syria. Well, you can’t possibly solve this issue before the problem between Turkey and PKK has been dealt with; Syria is not like Iraq or Turkey” an Assyrian politician told the author.

 

“In Iraq, you know you have the Barzani and the Talebani party. On the other side, you have PKK and APO, Apoci, Abdallah Öcalan. The real problem for the Kurds in Syria is the competition between Apo and Barzani. Who will control the Syrian Kurds? The Qandil trend wins this competition. So, in fact, there are three Kurdish forces in these Syrian regions, namely PYD (and all the institutions next to PYD, the Kurdish National Council (KNC)), and the new Kurdish alliance, just now like let’s say, Hamid Darweesh.”19 Hamid Darweesh passed away in the Autumn of 2019 (Oct. 24).

 

 “So, for a real solution for the Kurdish issue in Syria, first of all, I think we have to start to re-open the peace dialogues between AKP and Abdallah Öcalan. If there are no moves forward into this direction, I don’t think there will never be some solution,” according to the Assyrian politician.

 

 “There were three agreements between PYD and the KNC (Erbil and Duhok agreements). Of course, under the patronage of Mas’oud Barzani, but they failed. They failed with three axes, one of them military, one was financial… And PYD/YPG didn’t accept that: first of all, it was 50/50 and then 70/30 between them. The only thing they accepted between them was the initiative… let’s say the governance aspects of the treatment. But the most important were the two first ones, the military and the financially. And in that time, there was a checkpoint in Samalka and even one more in al-Yaroubiye which was also in PYD hands,’’ according to an Assyrian politician.

 

In the political programme, ‘The Political Salon’ on Syria TV, on 20 June, some other important points and questions were being raised here by an Arab representative: “France and the US are pressuring Arabs, Kurdish KNC, and the others in the area to support PYD.  Until now, we have no idea what happens with the oil revenues (Rumeilan and Deir al-Zour). And we know how PYD dealt with the Revolution. And why there are Kurdish – Kurdish talks about how Deir al-Zour (which is completely Arabic) should be run, and Raqqa (which is almost completely Arabic)? If they agree that Duhok20 Report about the intra Syrian Kurdish talks in Northeast Syria, https://twitter.com/RenaNetjes/status/1274289271223058432?s=09   (2014) will be the starting point for further talks, why Duhok isn’t being implemented now immediately?”

 

 “There is still nothing new. Or if there is, there are no leaks about them. The agreement about the first phase ended, given the joint politically binding declaration.  The second phase is about administrative things, and the matter of defense, the matter creates worries among other components of the Syrian people: what about the PKK, as until now the PYD/SDF hasn’t published any statement that clarifies their connection with the PKK, nor their departure of its cadres from Syrian soil, still the faith of Raqqa and Deir al-Zour is not clear, will the agreement be only about the Kurdish areas or about all the areas under SDF and PYD control? What is the connection between the Kurds and Deir al-Zour? This matter causes a lot of worry. They say there is no final agreement, only drafts. And even these drafts remain secret because together with the Americans, the PYD and the KNC, they agree it will remain secret. But, according to my opinion, this is linked to all the people, to all Jezira, to all components, directly linked to the Syrian people; Northeast Syria has the wealth of oil. So there should be enough information about these agreements and about all that’s going on. But until now, this hasn’t happened, as everything is still happening secretly. The Etilaf facilitated the KNC in a direct way, but until now the KNC is not answering any questions in public” according to an exiled Kurdish lawyer from Kobani.

 

Ibrahim Biro (KNC): Barzani tried three times but failed. Unfortunately, the PYD did not stick to the most essential common points to become partners. They (PYD) really have to offer something for talks to succeed. 21 Watch the news clip here: الجزيرة السورية والمصير المنتظر الصالون السياسي, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqtRuUF-Ovs&feature=youtu.be

 

When will the next round of talks begin? I asked KNC veteran Ne’mut Daoud, chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Equality party, in Qamishli. He answered on 9 July:

 

“After 16 June, after they issued the statement22 This is a statement of the Partys of the Kurdish National Unity. In the name of…https://twitter.com/starrcongress/status/1262993140249747456?s=09 about the understandings which happened between the KNC and the National Unity Parties. Twenty Kurdish parties – next to the PYD – the second phase of the negotiations did not yet start, there is contact between the KNC and the supervising side of the of the negotiations whether it is the American side or the leadership of SDF, general Mazloum, there is contact  between us, there are preparations for the second phase.”

 

“The second phase of the (secret) dialogue, or negotiations between the PYD and KNC resumed about a week ago” a member of the KNC delegation told the author on Wednesday 23 July.

 

“These negotiations will go according the Dohuk Agreement23 Divided Syrian Kurds reach deal in face of ISIS threat, https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/221020141-amp?__twitter_impression=true   along three subjects. The first subject will be authority, the second subject will be the administration and the third subject will be the military matters. We started with the first subject. Until now, there were no direct negotiations. A direct (face to face) meeting between the delegations hasn’t happened yet. There is an exchange of papers and ideas with the help of an American go-between. But we arrived to a closer point to be able to have a direct meeting to discuss a first draft paper. I don’t think it will take a long time to wait; maybe within only a few days it will happen,” he said.

*For safety reasons, names of many sources had to be omitted.

“The editing of this article was done by Limwierde Taaldiensten. limwierde.nl“

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