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Russia, Turkey quietly spar over Syrian
Kurdistan
7.8.2012
By Mohammad Ballout - Al-Monitor |
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, welcomes
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during
their meeting to discuss differences on Syria as UN
Security Council prepared to vote on the conflict,
in the Kremlin in Moscow, Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Photo: AP
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August 7, 2012
Russia and Turkey are in a race for western
Kurdistan. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and
Vladimir Putin’s Middle East Special Envoy Mikhail
Bogdanov met with the leaders of the Kurdish
Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main force
controlling the Kurdish areas in northern Syria.
That undeclared meeting in Erbil coincided with
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to
Iraqi Kurdistan last Tuesday, July 31.
It was the first time that a high-ranking Russian
official met with Kurdish officials close to Syrian
territory. For about a year, the PYD has been
administering that territory through elected bodies.
In the meantime, the United Nations General Assembly
approved a Saudi-sponsored resolution condemning the
Syrian regime’s violence and calling for a
transitional process that starts with government
forces ceasing the use of heavy weapons. Russia,
China, and Iran voted against the resolution while
Lebanon and Algeria abstained. Moscow expressed its
deep “concern” for Syrian developments, especially
in the city of Aleppo, which yesterday saw violent
clashes in the district of Salahuddin as the Syrian
army tried to enter it.
There were deliberations to appoint a successor to
Kofi Annan, the Arab and international envoy to
Syria. The most prominent candidates for the
position are former Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel
Angel Moratinos, former Finnish President Martti
Ahtisaari who helped end the Kosovo conflict, Swiss
Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, and former UN envoy to
Afghanistan Stefan De Mistura. A Western diplomat
said that Moratinos is the front-runner.
Russia and the Kurds
The Russians want to find out what the Kurds plan to
do with the area they now control. The Kurds have
become a major player in northern Syria after the
Syrian army left the area to concentrate on other
fronts. And the Turks are threatening to intervene
in northern Syria. In Turkey’s Kurdish areas, there
are daily clashes involving the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK).
This “Kurdish belt,” which is composed of PKK-controlled
cities and municipalities within Turkey and “west
Kurdistan” in Syria, constitutes the PYD’s strategic
depth and an effective deterrent against the Turkish
army. That deterrent “may blow up in the army’s face
if it tries to enter Syria’s Kurdish areas,” a PKK
official in Europe told As-Safir.
A Syrian Kurdish official told As-Safir that the
delegation that met with Bogdanov is the same
delegation that Ahmet Davutoglu refused to meet with
on the grounds that its PYD members are with the PKK,
which Davutoglu accuses of terrorism.
The Kurds assured Bogdanov that the autonomous
administration was established to compensate for the
Syrian government’s absence in the area, that it
will end when things settle down,www.ekurd.net
that Syrian Kurds do not intend to secede and are
working within the framework of the Syrian state and
that the Kurds will not be a cause of tension for
the countries of the region.
The opposition source said that Ahmet Davutoglu
tried to split the Kurds and has undermined the
Kurdish agreement — between the PYD and 14 Kurdish
political parties in the Kurdish National Council —
stipulating the formation of a joint supreme body to
manage the People’s Council for West Kurdistan and
the bodies emanating from it.
The Turkish Foreign Minister succeeded in sowing
discord between the Kurds last Wednesday [August 1]
by insisting that he meet only with Abdul Basit Sida,
the president of the Turkey-sponsored Syrian
National Council (SNC) and representatives of
Kurdish parties but not with the PYD.
A Syrian Kurdish opposition member said that PYD
Secretary General Salih Muslim accused the other
Kurdish parties of harming the Kurd’s united
position by agreeing to Turkish conditions and by
attending a meeting that excluded the PYD, their
partner in the Supreme Kurdish Council.
The Syrian Kurdish opposition member said that the
PYD believes that a deal was struck between the
Kurdish parties and the SNC whereby they would be
part of SNC institutions and thus isolate the PYD.
The PYD accused the other parties of taking a
unilateral decision without going back to the
Supreme Kurdish Council and promised to respond to
this unilateral decision by not returning to Erbil
and by directing anyone who wants to meet with the
PYD to go to the headquarters of the People’s
Council for west Kurdistan in Qamishli, Syria.
SNC President Abdul Basit Sida said in Erbil that
the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has not and will not
withdraw from Aleppo where it is fighting the
regular forces. He noted that the SNC is in contact
with the combatants fighting Bashar al-Assad “to
provide them with supplies.”
Aleppo and the UN General Assembly.
The violent clashes in Aleppo, in northern Syria,
continued on Friday [August 3] as the regular forces
tried to break into the district of Salahuddin. The
regular army was able to advance about 50 meters
into Salahuddin while FSA fighters succeeded in
fully controlling the district around the radio
station and some police and security stations,
according to the leader of FSA’s Nour al-Haq
battalion, Wasel Ayyoub. UN Under-Secretary-General
for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous said that
the “main” battle for Aleppo is “imminent.”
Elsewhere, the 193-nation UN General Assembly
approved a Saudi-sponsored non-binding draft
resolution expressing “concern” for the escalation
of violence in Syria. There were 133 votes in favor
of the resolution, 12 against, and 31 abstentions.
The resolution condemned “the increasing use by the
Syrian authorities of heavy weapons, including
indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters”
and called on the Syrian regime to fulfill its
promise to “withdraw its troops and heavy weapons to
their barracks.” The resolution requested the
formation of a “transitional council that governs by
consensus” and that all parties cooperate with Arab
and international envoy Kofi Annan to implement a
transitional phase that paves the way for free
elections.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement
that “Moscow is very concerned about the dangerous
development in Syria’s situation, the continued
violence and the provocations intended to expand the
conflict and its brutality,” stressing that “the
Syrian civilians’ suffering keeps getting worse.”
Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said in
Moscow that President Assad’s departure will not
solve the Syrian crisis. In a press conference at
the Russian capital, Jamil said, “Let us assume that
[the president] resigns. Then what? The [other]
parties cannot even agree on starting a dialogue or
sitting at the negotiating table.” He added that a
dialogue should be opened to resolve the crisis
politically. He noted that if Assad leaves, then
there will be no party to negotiate with.
Jamil accused the US, which, like the Syrian
opposition, insists on Assad’s departure, of lying.
He said, “The West’s position is mendacious because
it does not contribute to realizing the conditions
for dialogue and does not want peace but rather
continued bloodshed.”
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