MESOP : TO WHOM BELONGS ROJAVA ? TO ALL OF THE KURDS ? OR AS A PRIVATE PROPERTY OF PKK?

‘PKK should evacuate Mount Qandil’: KRG official

July 5, 2015 – ARA News – Dohuk, Kurdistan Region – Masrour Barzani, chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, said in a press statement that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) should evacuate Qandil mountains –which belong to Iraqi territory. This comes amid rifts in Iraqi Kurdistan regarding the PKK’s support to the independence of Yezidi people in Sinjar of northern Iraq.“The PKK should pull out its fighters from Qandil mountains because the people of Sinjar will determine their own future,” Barzani said.

He explained that the Qandil mountains are part of the Iraqi territory and the PKK should leave, hoping that the Kurdish peace process in Turkey brings about the aspired stability “thus those fighters can return home safely”. “Fighters of the PKK and YPG (Syrian Kurdish forces close to the PKK) are our guests in Iraqi Kurdistan. Our Peshmerga forces have also been guests in Kobane where they supported their Syrian peers against terrorism. So the presence of the Kurdish forces in other territories follows our people’s need and a retreat is demanded as soon as a force completes its mission,” he said.

Speaking to ARA News, Kurdish journalist Hussein Shaker said that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is trying to put pressure on the PKK to facilitate Kurdish unity in Rojava (Kurdish areas in Syria) as long as the YPG forces do not accept the entry of the Peshmerga of Rojava to Syrian territory. Peshmerga of Rojava is a group of Syrian Kurdish fighters who received training in Iraqi Kurdistan to return and defend their areas. However, the YPG leadership conditioned that the return of the Peshmerga of Rojava to Syria will require its fighters to join the YPG ranks.