MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : SDF/PKK/PYD FORCES CONSULATION TALKS WITH SYRIAN REGIME
WEST KURDISTAN (SYRIA) – Syria’s tolerated Arab opposition in rare visit to Syrian Kurdistan
3 June 2018 – QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— A delegation from Syria’s tolerated domestic opposition made a rare visit to Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), the Kurdish region in northern Syria, Saturday after the president threatened to use force to retake areas held by the Kurds.
The Kurds, whose militia spearhead an anti-Islamic jihadist force backed by a US-led coalition, have long pushed for increased autonomy in oil-rich Syrian Kurdistan in northeastern Syria.
The delegation will meet officials from different political parties in the main Kurdish town of Qamishlo (Qamishli).“This visit is, of course, in consultation with the Syrian regime,” a Syrian Kurdish official who asked to remain anonymous told AFP.“The delegation is trying to play the role of mediator between the autonomous region and Kurdish parties on one side and the Syrian regime on the other,” the official said.On Thursday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned US-backed Kurdish forces he would not hesitate to use force to retake the third of the country they control if negotiations failed.
The Pentagon warned President al-Assad not to carry out an offensive against Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States that control Syrian Kurdistan.Damascus recognises several political parties that describe themselves as the domestic opposition, but opposition politicians in exile accuse them of being a mere extension of the regime.Mays Kraydiyyeh of the Syrian Democratic Front, a tolerated opposition party, said Assad’s warning was “not aimed at Syrians but at Americans and foreign interference”.
In Damascus on Saturday, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said talks with the Kurds had not yet started.“There has been contact, but we have not yet started negotiating on the future,” he said.After regime forces withdrew from Kurdish-majority areas in 2012, Syria’s Kurds worked on building a semi-autonomous region in areas they control.
Kurdish militia control around 28 percent of Syrian territory, including large parts of the northern border with Turkey. In 2013, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) — the political branch of the powerful People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013.On March 17, 2016, Kurdish authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
Turkey on January 20, 2018 launched an operation against the YPG in its western enclave of Afrin in Syria and on March 18, Turkish troops supporting Syrian rebels drove the YPG out of Afrin city.