MESOP NEWS : Kurdish Administration Sets Dates for Elections / THE PKK/PYD REFERENDUM

WEST KURDISTAN (SYRIA)

The Kurdish Constituent Council of North-Syria Democratic Federation meeting in Rmeilian, July 29, 2017: – Trying to consolidate autonomy in northern Syria, a Kurdish-led administration has set dates for local council and regional assembly elections. A Constituent Council meeting in Cezire, one of the three Kurdish cantons, set dates of August 22 for commune elections; November 3 for administrations of villages, towns, districts, and cantons; and January 19, 2018 for regions and a northern Syria “people’s conference”.

The arrangements cover all three Kurdish cantons: Cezire in northeast Syria, Kobani in north-central Syira, and Afrin, separated from the others in the northwest.

The Assad regime and its allies, Iran and Russia, are opposed to any Kurdish autonomy that leads to a federal Syria. Turkey is bitterly opposed because it considers the leading Kurdish forces, the Syrian Kurdistan Democratic Party (PYD) and its YPG militia, to be connected to the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK.