GENEVA, Switzerland – Objecting to “exclusion” of the Kurdish question by the Syrian opposition High Negotiation Committee (HNC) in the Geneva peace talks, the Kurdish delegation has announced the suspension of its participation in a statement released Thursday evening.
“We refuse the policy of cancellation and exclusion, and we see the need for more dialogue. And on that basis we see no reason to continue our participation in the meetings of the [High Negotiation] Committee in this round, and declare the suspension,” the statement said, warning that they “do not commit to agreements that will be reached in our absence.”
The Kurdish National Council (KNC) has two members within the HNC, a Saudi-backed umbrella group of political and armed opposition Syrian organizations participating in UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks.
The two delegates recently came under criticism from some officials within the KNC when the fifth round of the Geneva talks began on March 23.
The Kurdish delegates insist they were diligent in raising Kurdish concerns, but were ignored.
“The [Kurdish] delegates in the Committee and the Negotiation team proposed a document in the name of the Committee to the United Nations envoy de Mistura that emphasizes the participation of the Kurds in the negotiations… and addressed the Kurdish cause, and the issues of the components, which calls for their inclusion in the agenda,” the joint statement from the two Kurdish delegates said, adding that this is in contrast to reports that circulated earlier this week suggesting that the Kurdish delegates had failed to raise the Kurdish question in the meetings.
“This however did not meet the approval of the Committee,” the statement continued, because of the refusal of members of the Syrian opposition delegation to the Geneva talks and a few other people from the Syrian opposition “who insisted on ignoring the Kurdish question.”
This, the statement said, raises question about “the sincerity” of the Syrian opposition with regard to the Kurdish question and that of the other Syrian peoples such as Turkmens and Assyrians.
The KNC released a letter this weekend highlighting the need for further attention given to the “Kurdish question” in Syria and respect for the country’s ethnic diversity in a response to the UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura’s recently shared non-paper.
The letter released by Kamiran Hajo, Chairman of the KNC’s Committee for External Affairs, concluded, “the Kurdish National Council in Syria cannot identify with the non-paper. Furthermore, we want to point out that we expect an explicit commitment to the Kurdish issue’s relevance for a peace settlement by both the Syrian opposition – our associates – and the UN.”
The letter, addressed to de Mistura, stated that the non-paper’s commitment to diversity is “not to the exten[t] the Kurdish National Council would have wished for.”
In response to the letter, de Mistura reportedly told the Kurds that they have to look into the mirror for ignoring the Kurdish issue in the talks, according to a member of the KNC’s External Affairs Committee who called for the replacement of the two Kurdish delegates.
"So far both Kurdish representatives Abdulhakim Bashar and Fuad Aliko have failed in the opposition delegation,” Siyamand Hajo, told Rudaw on Monday, “because they were not able to put pressure on the Syrian opposition to include the Kurdish issue in the document."
"The office of de Mistura told me that the Kurdish delegation do not have any demands in the official meetings and are silent,” Hajo said. “They are just listening to the suggestions from the delegations of the Syrian government and the opposition. If the representatives of the Kurds happen not to have any suggestions, [the UN envoy] therefore is not responsible for it."
In today’s joint statement both delegates denied they had failed to raise the Kurdish question.
Bashar also denied on Monday that they were not able to raise the Kurdish cause, asserting that the Syrian opposition "have not yet agreed on the agenda for the meetings. If the political transition process was discussed, then the Kurdish issue will become part of it."
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