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Kurdish PYD leader denies Syrian Kurds
seek secession
3.10.2013
By Vicken Sheterian, Al Hayat |
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Salih Muslim, co-president of the Syrian Kurdish
Democratic Union Party (PYD), the biggest Kurdish
party in western Kurdistan (north and northeastern
Syria). Photo:
AA •
See Related Articles
October 3, 2013
Salih Muslim, the leader of the Democratic Union
Party (PYD), deemed to be the most powerful
politician among the Syrian Kurdish parties, was in
Geneva to hold meetings with international
organizations and explain his perspective. The PYD,
which has close ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK), controls areas inhabited by Kurds in northern
Syria (Eastern Kurdistan), and has a highly
disciplined fighting force made up of a few thousand
soldiers.
When I met him, he told me that these organizations
“sometimes receive information from other Syrian
Kurdish groups trying to distort our image. We came
here to express our viewpoint and convey facts from
the field.”
When I asked him about the role played by the United
Nations in the Syrian conflict, he laughed and
replied, “In the mid-1990s, the UN almost stopped
working after the United States refused to pay its
dues. Does this answer your question?”
Muslim was born in the city of Kobani, or Ain
al-Arab, in 1951. “Did you know that it is the
Armenians who founded the city of Kobani?” he asked
me.
“Kobani is a German name (from the Koban railway
company). This village was a train station built in
1912 by the Germans as part of the railway lines
linking Berlin to Baghdad. In 1915, it turned into a
village with the arrival of Armenian refugees
fleeing the massacres. Kurds from neighboring
villages subsequently started to flow into it. When
I grew up, I remember that there were three Armenian
churches in the village, but they moved to Armenia
in the 1960s,” he added.
Muslim continued his primary education in
Damascus and finished high school in Aleppo. He
subsequently moved to Istanbul, where he studied at
the Istanbul Technical University and majored in
chemical engineering, and then went to Saudi Arabia
to work. Muslim belongs to a generation attracted by
Kurdish politics inspired by the struggle of Mustafa
Barzani, and has headed the PYD since 2010.
The first question I asked him was the following: Is
the PYD in a state of war? If so, against whom?
“We have been in a state of war ever since the party
was founded in 2003; first against the regime. Back
then, the Syrian regime had a good relationship with
Turkey, and we paid a heavy price at the human
level. Ahmed Hussein, aka Abu Joudi, was killed in
2004 by military intelligence under torture. During
the same year, Silan Kobani and his friends were
assassinated in Mosul at the hands of the
intelligence services. In 2008, Osman Suleiman,
among others, died under torture. I was personally
arrested and tortured as well. We had to fight other
Syrian Kurdish parties that believed we were seeking
to make problems, but we are revolutionaries and we
did not surrender.”
Before I asked him about the accusations made
against the PYD of dealing with the Syrian
authorities, he said, “We are the only Kurdish party
that fought the regime in the neighborhood of
Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maksoud,” both of which are
located in Aleppo and are home to a Kurdish
majority.
“During a single confrontation in 2011, 61 soldiers
belonging to the regime were killed, and the total
number of our victims and civilians who were killed
reached 47,” he added.
He continued, “On July 19, 2012, we successfully
gained control of the Kurdish areas and imposed
self-rule, leading the regime forces to withdraw
from these areas. Today, however, we are facing
another problem, namely fighting Salafist-jihadist
groups.
“We are currently fighting the regime forces and
Jabhat al-Nusra. We fear mass crimes against
civilians who live in the neighborhood of Ashrafieh
and Sheikh Maksoud, which are constantly being
shelled and put under jihadist siege. We call on the
international community to intervene to prevent
massacres.”
I interrupted him to ask, “Did the withdrawal of
regime forces in July 2012 take place in
coordination with the PYD?” He replied, “These are
false allegations. We are putting pressure on the
regime forces that did not have the means to open a
new front against us. They have not forgotten how
the Kurds united and revolted during the Qamishli
uprising in 2004. In
Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ain in Arabic),www.ekurd.net
where Kurds account for half of the population and
Arabs for the other half, we only entered Kurdish
neighborhoods. Arabs there were with the regime.
Then, the jihadist groups entered and started
killing people, and when they started attacking
Kurdish areas, we fought them and drove them out of
the village.”
Asked whether the relationship between the Syrian
opposition — at the time of the formation of the
Syrian National Coalition (SNC) — and the units
tasked with protecting the people was complicated,
and how things have evolved since the formation of
the coalition, he said, “Let me start from the
beginning. When the Syrian revolution started, we
were looking for a strategic coalition. We
established a coordination committee — the National
Coordination Committee for Democratic Change [NCC] —
with the Communist Party, the Communist Labor Party,
the Political Bureau of the Communist Party and the
Socialist Union. They were the ones that started a
long struggle against the regime and imposed their
representation in the community. Our plan is to
overthrow the regime through peaceful means,
renounce violence and bring about democratic change.
Subsequently, a fake opposition with US-Turkish
support and Qatari funding was established in
Istanbul. But this opposition became internal,
without any representation, and it turned into an
exiled opposition that is not effectively present.
“The regime wanted to militarize the revolution as
it had the upper hand at the military level. Thus,
it released a few thousand Salafists and jihadists
from the Saidnaya prison — a prison of disrepute
near Damascus. And their plan succeeded. Who talks
about democracy now? Even the most moderate brigades
are demanding succession now,” he added.
During our hour-long conversation, Muslim talked
about “the philosophy of Abdullah Ocalan, who is
deemed to be a reference for the PYD. This
ideological reference can be described as a Leninist
approach adapted to the national liberation
struggle, which was greatly influenced by the
leftist factions of the Palestine Liberation
Organization in the 1970s.
“This ideological regime did not have common ground
with most of the Syrian opposition militant groups,
which have arisen within a Salafist-jihadist
political culture.
“The SNC was in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood
and under Turkey’s control. When the coalition was
established and moved to Cairo, we thought that it
would consist of an independent structure. Yet, it
ultimately turned into a body with unclear and
unharmonious features, knowing that it returned to
Istanbul.”
I asked him, “Do you understand the Syrian
opposition’s fears that the PYD may be preparing for
secession?” He replied, “These fears are unfounded.
There is not a single Kurdish party in Syria calling
for secession. Claiming our rights does not mean
that we want secession.” I then asked him, “You
never talked about northern Syria, but instead you
have mentioned western Kurdistan. Is that not a
political sign?” He replied that western Kurdistan
is not “a political but rather a geographical term.
Some people wanted us to forget our Kurdish
identity.”
I asked him, “Is the PYD a Syrian or a Kurdish
party?” He laughed and said, “It is a Syrian-Kurdish
and Middle Eastern party. Our party includes Arabs,
Assyrians and Turkmen. We embrace the philosophy of
Ocalan, and any person who is convinced of our
philosophy can join our party.”
On the circumstances leading to his two recent
visits to Istanbul, he said, “I hold no hostility
toward the Turkish people. We share a 900-kilometer
[559 mile] border with Turkey, with Kurds residing
on both sides. We expressed our concern that Turkey
may be providing logistic support to jihadist groups
such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which they denied the
existence of. We also talked about facilitating the
access of humanitarian aid to our areas.”
I asked him, Did the start of the negotiations
between the PKK leadership and Ankara pave the way
for this visit? He said, “For us, nothing has
changed. This has, however, helped the Kurdish
position toward us to be changed. When they
negotiate with the Kurds who are in Turkey, they
cannot ask the Syrian coalition not to negotiate
with Syrian Kurds.”
When I asked him about his partners from the Turkish
side in the negotiations, he did not answer clearly
and contented himself by saying that they are taking
place with the adviser to the foreign minister,
without mentioning names. But he added that he did
not rule out the possibility of a third visit.
By Vicken Sheterian, translated by Al Monitor
from Al-Hayat (Pan Arab).
Regions and cities names in Kurdish may have been changed or added to
the article by Ekurd.net
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author or news agency,
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