Ceasefire breaks down between Kurds & regime in Hasakah

MESOP : ASSAD STARTS CLASHING CONTRA KURDS

31.05.2014 – BasNews, Syria – Violent clashes erupted again on Saturday between the pro-regime militia National Defence Force (NDF) and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) at the entrance of the Kurdish Aziziye neighborhood, says the UK-based rights organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

After clashes erupted between the Kurds and the Syrian government on May 19, the Syrian Kurdish fighters reached a  ceasefire with the Syrian government after intervention of local elders in Hasakah city on May 23.

But fighting erupted again between the Kurdish security police (Asayish) supported by the YPG and the pro-regime NDF militia supported by Arab tribal gunmen.  This caused the death of four Kurdish militiamen and 7 fighters from the pro-regime militias. An unknown number of civilians was killed in the fighting. The clashes led the YPG to take control over water centre in the neighbourhood of Aziziye and besieging the regime’s militia in the national hospital. The Syrian government is planning to hold presidential elections on the 3rd of June. Small elections campaigns were hold in regime-controlled districts in the cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, but the Syrian Kurds will boycott the presidential elections.  Kurdish youth groups have been holding campaigns calling on people not to vote for Assad in Qamishli and Hasakah.