MESOP RECOMMENDATION : Syrian Kurdish politician criticizes AK Party’s Syria policy / SIAMEND HAJO
July 07, 2015, Tuesday/ / OKTAY YAMAN / BERLIN – A senior Syrian Kurdish politician has voiced sharp criticism of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government for what he describes as a bungled Syria policy and ill-conceived approach to Syrian Kurds amid Ankara’s growing uneasiness over the rise of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria.As the PYD and its military wing, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), have driven the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from northern Syrian towns and villages near the Turkish border, the unification of three PYD-run cantons fueled concerns in Ankara over the creation of a separate zone along its southern border.The PYD has emerged as the paramount representative of Syrian Kurds, firmly consolidating its grip among the Kurdish population while rival Kurdish parties’ appeal has significantly eroded.
Turkey has pursued ill-planned policies in northern Syria while misreading the maneuverings of the Bashar al-Assad regime, which left control of northern areas to the PYD, the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in the early phase of the uprising, claimed Siamend Hajo, chairman of liberal Kurdish Future Movement in Syria.
Elected as chairman of the liberal party at a gathering in İstanbul in 2014, Hajo spoke about the untold aspect of the PYD’s rise, the AK Party’s policy toward Syrian Kurds and the regime. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman on Tuesday in Berlin, Hajo said the AK Party has been delusional in its dealings with the PKK and PYD, voicing skepticism and caution over what he says is the Turkish government’s belief to control the PKK/PYD through jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.
“Turkey didn’t try to support non-PKK groups, left the whole ground to the PKK. It is grossly wrong to include the PYD in the peace process with the PKK. It is inconceivable to think that the PYD can be controlled through Öcalan, who is in prison,” he said.
He said the PKK, to a significant extent, has become independent of Öcalan in its decisions, and the government’s courting of the PKK leader to gain concessions and compromise [in the peace process that aims to solve the decades-old Kurdish question and armed conflict with the PKK] fails to grab realities on the ground. “Öcalan is losing his control over Kandil. At this point there is the need to see Iran’s expanding influence over the PKK and PYD,” he said.
The Kurdish Future Movement in Syria or the Kurdish Future Party is a liberal political party founded by Mashaal Tammo, who was assassinated by the PKK at his home in Syria’s northeastern city of Qamishli in 2011. Hajo said the PKK/PYD established their hegemony among the Kurdish community by eliminating rival Kurdish leaders and suppressing parties and groups.
Once a minority group, the PYD has enjoyed wide support among Kurds this year after it entered the fray in the frontline in the fight against ISIL.
However, Hajo claims that it was the PYD’s methods of intimidation of rival groups, forcing locals to migrate and bullying them into submission that made the PYD a dominant power.