Turkey-bound Barzani slams Syria turncoats

File photo of Erdogan and Barzani, who meet again tomorrow in Diyarbakir

Masoud Barzani, uncontested leader of more than 25 million Kurds living in parts of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, has given a sharp kick in the teeth to Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Kurds’ Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The PYD, which is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), this week declared a transitional administration in northeastern parts of Syria bordering Turkey.

Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, accused the PYD in Syria of “autocracy,” rejecting its unilateral declaration of independence in Syria’s Kurdish northeast.

He said the PYD was missing “a golden opportunity” by trying to hurriedly seize unilateral control of the Syrian Kurdish areas, or Rojava.

“This is autocracy and marginalization of the other Kurdish parties in Rojava.”  Barzani said in a statement. “We only support steps that have the consensus of all Kurdish parties in Rojava,” he added. “We refuse unilateral actions.”


“The PYD claims to have made a revolution in Rojava. But may I ask whom is this revolution targeted at? The only thing [the PYD] does is administer areas handed over to it by the [Assad] regime,” Barzani said in his written statement.

Barzani warned that the PYD was driving Syrian Kurds down a dead-end.

“There is serious concern this golden opportunity will be missed because the (Damascus) regime has not recognized Kurdish rights. At the same time, the Syrian opposition considers the PYD as an offshoot of the regime,” said Barzani. “This poses a serious danger for the future of our people.”


Barzani, who brokered a July 2012 deal in Erbil to forge a united stance among all Kurdish parties, called on the PYD and all other Kurdish groups to return to the terms of that accord.

“Despite our reservations about the PYD’s behavior and actions, we are happy to return to consensus, because autocracy will neither benefit the PYD nor the Kurdish people,” Barzani said.

“The PYD benefited from the agreement, but it did not commit to it. It suppressed other political parties at gunpoint and secretly sided with Assad’s regime to make itself a solo de facto military force on the ground,” Barzani said without mincing his words.


“I advise all Kurdish parties in Rojava to promote the interests of the Kurdish people and return to the principles of the Erbil agreement, because this is the best option to strengthen the Kurdish position in Syria,” Barzani said. “We will assist you to the best of our ability.”


The Kurdish president also accused the PYD of fighting a war that does not serve Kurdish interests, saying the PYD’s clashes with Qaeda-affiliated jihadists since last summer have forced tens of thousands of Kurds to flee Rojava.
  

The PYD’s armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), also clashed in late March with other Kurdish forces in northeast Syria and in the city of Amuda, where local residents protested against the arrest of three Kurdish activists by the PYD.

“It was decided Kurds would not get involved in the internal Syrian war, but the PYD got our people in a war that is not in their interest,” Barzani said.

Barzani’s Iraqi Kurdistan regional administration denied PYD leader Saleh Muslim entrance to its territory last week, which was interpreted as a sign of the disagreements between the PYD and the KRG. The Syrian Kurdish leader says he had to wait five days before ultimately being told he would not be allowed into Iraqi Kurdistan.

Barzani also denounced the PYD for banning the Kurdistan flag in Rojava.

Diyarbakir summit

The Iraqi Kurdish leader is set for an important visit to Diyarbakir tomorrow, Saturday, where he will meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Selin Caglayan, writing today for Rudaw, Kurdistan’s English-language newspaper, notes the meeting comes when Erbil’s differences with the PYD are escalating and Ankara’s peacemaking with the PKK is on the rocks.

The weekend summit will focus on bilateral ties, Ankara’s recently improving relations with Baghdad, developments in Syria and the government’s peace process with the PKK, the premier’s aide and foreign ministry sources in Ankara told Rudaw.


Barzani’s visit “is a message both for the PYD and PKK,” said Mehmet Ozcan, an academic and director of the Ankara Strategy Institute. “’You are not the only Kurds in the region’ is the message,” he told Rudaw.


”In Syria the PYD is bullying the other Kurdish parties and trying to be the sole representative of the Syrian Kurds, as  the PKK once did in Turkey,” Ozcan said. “On the other hand, the PKK is creating problems by blocking the peace process and putting pressure on the public before the local elections” in March, he added.


Kurdish author and commentator Irfan Aktan agreed that developments in Syria, where the PYD runs its government from the city of Qamishli with strong support from the PKK in Diyarbakir, were driving Ankara and Erbil ever closer.  “This alliance would weaken the Diyarbakir-Qamishli axis, and this makes many Kurds uneasy,” he said.


According to the Yeni Safak daily, which is close to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Barzani will meet with key Kurdish figures in Diyarbakir to deliver this message: “The armed struggle is over; now it is time for political struggle for all the Kurds.”


It expects Barzani to propose mediating between Ankara and PKK headquarters in the Kurdistan Region’s Qandil Mountain to restart a stalled peace process.

While Ankara’s ties with Baghdad are on the mend, its relations with Erbil have been hitting new highs. Turkey is Erbil’s largest trade partner, and the two are involved in multi-billion dollar pipeline deals to get the Kurdistan Region’s rich energy reserves to markets in Turkey and beyond.


Barzani reportedly visited Diyarbakir in 1996 and stayed one night. But this will be his first visit as president.

He arrives in Turkey with beloved Kurdish singer Shirwan Perwer, who has been in exile for 37 years.  Erdogan announced that Perwer would sing a duet in Diyarbakir with legendary Kurdish singer Ibrahim Tatlises.

Syrian Kurds declare transitional administration

The PYD's Saleh Muslim and a map showing "Rojava" along Syria's border with Turkay

Syrian Kurds yesterday declared an interim administration in northeastern parts of the country (Rojava), further solidifying their geographic and political presence after driving out radical Islamist rebels. 

Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the Syria war as an opportunity to gain more autonomy -- like their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. 

Control over Syria's northeast, where Kurds predominate, had in recent months swung back and forth between them and mainly Arab Islamist rebels, who strongly oppose what they suspect are Kurdish plans to secede.

But a Kurdish militia prevailed earlier this month, and at a meeting held in the Syrian city of Qamishli yesterday, a committee of Kurdish and other groups said it was now time to set up an administrative body to run the region. 

"In light of the current circumstances which Syria is going through, and in order to fill an administrative vacuum... we see it as an utmost necessity to reach a transitional, pluralistic, democratic administration," said a statement sent to Reuters.

The statement said they were committed to the unity of Syria and asked world powers and neighboring countries to back the new administration, which they said had won the support of different political groups and minorities in the area.

The dominant force on the ground in Syria's Kurdish areas is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has a well-trained militia and is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PYD's growing clout has also dismayed some fellow Kurds, who accuse it of being in league with Assad and seeking to replace his authoritarian one-party rule with its own.

PYD representative Mohammed Reso said some Syrian Kurdish parties had refused to sign up to the plan.

Davutoglu

In his first remarks after the declaration of the interim administration, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the PYD of "not keeping its promise."

"We told them to avoid a de facto administration declaration that could divide Syria. We told them to put a distance between themselves and the [al-Assad] regime," Davutoglu said during a live interview on private broadcaster NTV on Tuesday. 

He criticized the Kurdish group for adopting an "ambivalent" posture. "The most serious mistake that the PYD is making is to put under pressure on the other Kurdish opposition groups in [their] controlled areas. We receive a lot of complaints from Kurds [in northern Syria], and we hope they will change this attitude," Davutoglu added.

PYD leader Saleh Muslim had visited Turkey twice in a brief period in July and August as the open conflict between Kurdish militia groups and jihadist rebels mounted, causing a refugee outflow from Rojava. He reportedly discussed with Turkish officials PYD's plans of forming an autonomous administration that triggered concerns in Ankara.

Barzani

The Turkish government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have adopted a similar attitude on the situation in northern Syria. Both oppose the PYD's creation of a politically autonomous entity in the region.

KRG leader Massoud Barzani is troubled by the disputes among Kurds, particularly between the PYD and other Kurdish parties, over the areas in Syria's north.

The Turkish government and Barzani also backed the Syrian Kurdish National Council (KNC), a group that agreed to join the main Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

“The KNC is close to Barzani. Barzani wanted to impose his policies in Rojava and Turkey wanted to use Barzani to establish an alternative group to the PYD, which was the KNC. They tried hard, but failed. The KNC is not stronger than the PYD,” Iso said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet Barzani in Diyarbakir at the weekend.

According to Turkish media sources, Erdogan will visit Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, when he will be meeting the Iraqi Kurdistan president.

A source from Turkish Channel Show TV said renowned Kurdish singer Shivan Perwer will be back to Diyarbakir from self-exile in Germany to meet Barzani and Erdogan.

Relations between Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and Turkey have been improving steadily of late.

The volume of trade between Iraq and Turkey is about $12 billion, with three quarters of it being between Ankara and the Kurdistan Region.

Iran

Writing for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today, former editor-in-chief Tariq Alhomayed quotes a Reuters dispatch yesterday as saying the Kurds’ military gains in Syria is posing a dilemma for regional powers.

Syrian Kurds view Syria’s civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq.

The seriousness of the report, says Alhomayed, is that their offensive has stirred mixed feelings, globally, regionally and locally, even among some fellow Kurds, who say the Kurdish fighters have drifted into an Iran-led regional axis supportive of Assad, something they deny.

To Assad and his Shiite allies, their gains mean more territory out of Sunni rebel hands two and a half years into a revolt against his rule.

Islamist rebels -- particularly the Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been imposing their will across rebel-held territory -- argue that their defeat says more about who was helping their foes than the strength of the Kurdish forces themselves. They said help from Assad's forces and Shiite-led Iraq was the reason for Kurdish gains.

The Iraqi government strongly denies supporting any faction in Syria, including Kurds.

A closer reading of this and other reports shows the Kurds’ military gains in Syria are posing a bigger dilemma for Syrian Kurds than for regional powers.

A senior Iraqi politician told Reuters Shiite powerhouse Iran, Assad's main regional ally, was also actively backing the PYD and emboldening the PKK, with which it is closely aligned.

"Iran supports these groups to guarantee having a powerful group in Syria in case things go out of control," he said, adding that Tehran was creating a network of allies from minority groups across the country to bolster their interests and to create alternative partners should Assad fall.

The Iraqi politician said Baghdad's Shiite government was supporting the Kurds to weaken cross-border ties among Sunnis.

"(They) may help them in cooperation with Iran to create an autonomous Kurdish region ... to establish a buffer zone between Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis."

This of course means the Kurds will have hostile and unbalanced relations with a predominantly Sunni region.

Also, can Syria’s Kurds genuinely withstand Turkey’s ire and eventually that of Tehran, which is home to eight million Iranian Kurds?

Syrian Kurds are set to realize that you don’t build nation-states by simply having minorities go their separate ways.

“U.S., Russia looking for pliant Syrian opposition”

Clockwise from top L.: Bogdanov with Rifaat al-Assad, Kassis, Muslim. Jamil, Tlass and Manna'

The leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today suggests in its front page lead that the Americans and Russians are working hand in hand to put together a pliant Syrian opposition to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Geneva.

The paper says U.S. and Russian representatives held talks this week with opposition figures outside the Syrian National Coalition of Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, which most Western and Arab countries recognize as sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Asharq Alawsat’s report follows remarks by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov saying he would be meeting separately in Geneva Wednesday with each of:

Rifaat al-Assad, who fled Syria and went into exile in Europe in 1984 after staging a failed coup attempt against his brother Hafez al-Assad, the then president and father of Bashar. A sworn opponent of the current regime from which he has firmly distanced himself, there are no international sanctions against him. But human rights groups accuse him of playing a leading role in the bloody crushing of a 1982 uprising against his brother, in which tens of thousands were killed in Hama. He has denied the accusations.

More recently, French anti-corruption campaign groups have accused him of corruption, money laundering, embezzlement of public funds and misuse of corporate assets.

Siwar al-Assad, a son of Rifaat, told The New York Times in a telephone interview from Geneva his father wanted to attend the proposed peace talks, known as Geneva II, as an opposition figure whose presence would reassure government supporters and help bring about a compromise.

He said his father did not insist that President Assad step down as a prerequisite for talks.

“By putting preconditions, nothing will change, and every day people are dying,” Siwar al-Assad said, calling President Assad’s imminent departure “a fantasy” and adding, “I’m not pro-Bashar, but I’m a person who is realistic.”

It was unclear whether other parties would accept even sitting with Rifaat al-Assad at talks, much less whether talks will take place. But the Russian move was a sign of casting about for new ways to break the impasse.

The meeting between Rifaat al-Assad and Bogdanov drew scorn from many opponents of the president. They call Rifaat al-Assad the Butcher of Hama, a reference to his role in the bloody suppression of a violent uprising in that Syrian city in 1982.

Siwar al-Assad said his father did not want to be president and advocated a gradual handover of power under a transition council including government and opposition members, a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press and an independent judiciary, and transparent elections in which anyone, including Bashar al-Assad, could run. Asked if Rifaat al-Assad expected to meet soon with American officials, Siwar al-Assad told The NYT, “maybe.”

Manaf Tlass, a former Brigadier General of the elite Syrian Republican Guard and a member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle until his defection in July 2012. He is the son of Mustafa Tlass who served as defense minister for 32 years from 1972 to 2004.

Haytham al-Manna’ of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), denies meeting Rifaat al-Assad in Geneva on Wednesday. “I am one of the people who started the criminal case against Rifaat al-Assad… I am still a member in Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) and not the commission to protect dictators.”

He said he does not have any contact with Rifaat or Qadri Jamil or any regime figure.

Saleh Muslim, leader of the Democratic Union Party, a Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), and the most powerful member of the Kurdish opposition in the Syrian civil war

Qadri Jamil, one of the top leaders of the People’s Will Party and the Popular Front for Change and Liberation and a former member of the Assad government. Assad dismissed him last month from the post of deputy prime minister for economic affairs for acting without government permission when he met with U.S. officials in Geneva.

Ms Randa Kassis, president of the Coalition of Secular and Democratic Syrians and member of the Syrian National Council. She is also an anthropologist and journalist.

Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi had hoped to hold the Geneva-2 peace conference this month.

But he said he was not able to announce a date, despite a day of meetings first with senior diplomats from the U.S. and Russia, then with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the UK, France and China -- as well as Syria's neighbors Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey.

Brahimi said he was still "striving" for a summit by the end of the year.

Attempts to set up a conference have been going on for months amid disputes over who should attend and its agenda.

The Syrian opposition has insisted President Assad should resign before any talks can take begin, but the government has rejected this.

The U.S. and Russia disagree on whether Syria's key regional neighbor Iran should be present.

The idea of a conference was first mooted in May, and in September UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced a tentative date of mid-November after the Security Council passed a binding resolution on Syrian chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, aid agencies have warned that more than nine million Syrians, almost half the population, are now in need of humanitarian relief, and 6.5 million were now homeless within Syria.