Roj Bash Kurdistan

BBC News

The president of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region has threatened to intervene to defend the Kurdish population caught up in Syria's unrest.



Massoud Barzani said if Kurds were "under threat of death and terrorism" then Iraqi Kurdistan would be "prepared to defend them".

Recent fighting between Kurds and Islamist anti-government forces have left dozens dead in northern Syria.

Kurds make up about 10% of the Syrian population.

They are largely concentrated in the north-east, towards the Turkish border.

The areas have been run by Kurdish local councils and militia since President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew last year.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in the 28-month conflict in Syria, with a further 1.7 million Syrians forced to seek shelter in neighbouring countries, according to UN estimates.

'All capabilities'

Syrian Kurdish militia have been engaged in fierce fighting recently with the jihadists of the anti-Assad al-Nusra Front.

Mr Barzani called for a delegation to visit the Kurdish areas in Syria.

He said if the delegation found evidence of "terrorists" killing Kurds, then Iraqi Kurdistan would "make use of all its capabilities to defend the Kurdish women, children and citizens in western Kurdistan".

Mr Barzani gave no details of what form any intervention might take.

Iraqi Kurdistan comprises three provinces in northern Iraq. It has its own military and police force.

Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority has faced decades of discrimination and marginalisation under Assad rule, with Syrian Kurds staging their own anti-government protests after the Syria conflict began in March 2011.

But most of the fighting recently has been against Islamist rebels.

Last month a prominent Syrian Kurdish politician, Isa Huso, was killed by a car bomb in the north-eastern town of Qamishli.

Kurdish militiamen responded with a call to arms to fight jihadists.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23650894

Glad to hear this, the terrorists are going run back across the borders or back to fight Assad.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said Friday that his government is “ready to everything in its power” to protect Syrian Kurds who are under threat from Islamist fighters.

“There has been news recently that Al-Qaeda groups have declared war against the Kurds in Syria and that they behead Kurdish women and children,” Barzani said in a letter to the organizers of an important Kurdish National Conference scheduled to be held in Erbil on August 24.

“If those reports are true, the Kurdistan Region is ready to everything in its power to protect the lives of the Kurds in western (Syrian) Kurdistan,” he said in the letter.

Barzani also called for an investigation into reports of attacks on Kurdish towns and villages from groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda, such as Jabhat al-Nusrah.

In the past several weeks fighters of the Jabhat al-Nusrah have been locked in fierce fights with the Kurdish Peoples Defense Units (YPG).

The fights that first started in Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain), where the YPG fighters succeeded in expelling the Nusrah fighters from the town, has now spread to other Kurdish villages, where many families are reported to have been massacred or displaced.

But Salih Muslim, leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which runs the YPG, told Rudaw TV that he has enough forces to defend the Kurdish areas, and does not need help from any outside forces.

“We have enough forces and we do not want any other party to come to Syrian Kurdistan to fight against the Jabhat al-Nusrah,” he said. “If other Kurdish parties want to help, they should send us ammunition, arms, food and clothes.”

Siamand Hajo, the head of the Berlin-based Kurdocide organization for human rights, told Rudaw that his organization did not have any evidence that massacres had taken place against Syrian Kurds.

“All the numbers we have for victims is 30 people and some of them are members of the YPG,” Hajo said. He added that the PYD may be using stories of Kurdish massacres for its own propaganda purposes.

Syrian Kurds have largely stayed away from the civil war that has engulfed the country for more than two years, and are suspicious of the main rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The PYD, which is affiliated with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and is accused by other Kurdish groups of carrying out the PKK’s agenda in Syria, has shown little tolerance for other opposition groups.

While consistently accusing other opposition groups of implementing foreign agendas, the PYD recently shifted its isolationist policy by opening channels of dialogue with Turkey and Syria.

Muslim met with Turkish officials last month. More importantly, he also met with Iranian officials in Tehran last week, a move that invited much speculation, since Iran is currently the main regional ally of the Damascus regime.

Muslim said that Iran has its own interests in Syria and that Iranian leaders follow closely the fight of radical Sunni groups against Syria’s Shiite Alawite minority and other ethnic groups.

“We acknowledge that difference in Iranian and Turkish policies in Syria, but we will not become an obedient servant of either side,” Muslim vowed.


Comments


2 5 Bakur | 5 hours ago
Well first of all the visit of Muslim to Turkey last week was not the first time PYD involved themselves in dialogue with Turkey. Turkish intelligence agency had already been in contacts with PYD prior to that meeting. Would you still comment that PYD has followed an isolationist policy? Second, why does it cause speculations when Muslim meets Iranian officials and means dialogue when he does the same with Turkey? Because you are pro-Turkey? Turkey is openly supporting the armed gangs?!? Third, Has not Muslim actually put it the best way by saying they will not be servant of either side?
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0 9 Ari | 5 hours ago
Finally!!!!After 2 years of civil war in Syria, somebody is saying SOMETHING from Iraqi-Kurdistan. What happened? Did Turkey told you to send pesmergahs to attack the PYD from THE BACK?? The KDP did BETRAY the Iranian-Kurds in the past(by working together with the pasdaran in the '80s). It did BETRAY the PKK in the '90s by working together with the Turkish army(and by the way for the ones who love history(by dragging the bodies of DEAD FEMALE PKK fighters with cars in Hewler in the '90s)). And last but not LEAST, we ALL REMEMBER the betrayal of 1996 in Hewler with Saddam Hossein. The truth will set you free!!.
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9 1 Bakir Lashkari | 5 hours ago
The Kurdistan Legend Leader Massoud Barzani is truly right in his speech that, if the reports are true of killing Kurds and attacking on Kurdish towns and villages from groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda, such as Jabhat al-Nusrah., is the Kurdistan Region ready to protect the lives of our Kurdish brothers and sisters in western (Syrian) Kurdistan.

I wonder if PYD would accept this intervention.

Piling wrote:I wonder if PYD would accept this intervention.

They will accept aid, lie what Mr.Muslim said in quoted in the article. They need to seen as the only local official authority in the area, but they can coordinate military and security with SK Peshmerga or even others.

They need to be able to repel the attacks on their own, provided that no other interferences from Turkey or others.

They need to seen as the only local official authority in the area

That is what Kurds supporting KNC will never accept. Or if they accept only the time to chase away al qaeda, trouble will start again the first days of peace.

If Salih Muslim agrees the entry of S. Kurdish peshmergas in W. Kurdistan it would be only because of an order from Öcalan (in fact Hakan FIndan) or from an agreement between PYD, AKP and KDP.

Until now they won't let enter no military force. And their argument that a single army is necessary is a joke. During 2WW there were 2 armies (USA and UK ) on West and 1 on East (SSRS) and they crushed nazis at the end.