PYD supporters demonstrate against KRG in Qamishli

ARA News – 27.5.2014 – Qamishli, Syria – Supporters of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) organized on Saturday a demonstration in the city of Qamishl, northeast of Syria, condemning the “decision” of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraqi (KRG) of “digging trenches along the borders with Syria’s Kurdish areas (which fall under the control of the PYD and its affiliated armed forces).

Many pro-PYD demonstrators gathered at al-Hilaliya roundabout (known as Osman Sabri Square) where the PYD-linked groups of Star Union, the Revolutionary Youth Movement, the Confederation of the Kurdish Nationalist Students, and the Kurdish Leftist Party in Syria participated in the anti-KRG demonstration. Participants waved slogans demanding KRG (and the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP) to “stop digging trenches at the borders to prevent Syrian Kurds from resorting to its territory”. The demonstrators accused the KRG and the KDP of “treason and holding conspiracies” against Syria’s Kurds.

Some of the slogans condemned the coordination between Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, accusing them of cooperation with the Islamist groups which fight against the PYD-affiliated Kurdish forces of the Popular Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

Farhad Osman, an activist based in Qamishli, told ARA News that the demonstration is a “farce” and digging trenches on the border between South and Western Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria’s Kurdish areas) is one the central Iraqi government decisions; the Kurdistan government has nothing to do with it.“However, President Barzani and his government’s position is clear through their support for western Kurdistan people. They hosted tens of thousands of Syria’s Kurds,” Osamn argued.

Osman stressed that the PYD policy of instigating people against Iraqi Kurdistan is “only to cover its suppressive practices” against the Kurdish activists and “its support to the Syrian regime” as well as “its violations against the Kurdish people in general”. Noteworthy, at the beginning of this month, the “PYD” urged its supporters to demonstrate and protest against digging trenches on the border-line between the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Kurdish areas in Syria, accusing the PDK (and thus the KRG) of what they called “dividing Kurdistan”. However, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) emphasized that the central government of Iraq is behind the trenching decision in order to prevent smuggling and illegal trade.