Kurdistan in Last Effort to Reconcile Kurdish Groups in Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The two rival Kurdish councils in Syrian Kurdistan are engaged in a final effort at reconciliation, and sources involved in the mediation say that if these talks fail the two blocs would sever ties and the umbrella Kurdish Supreme Committee would be dissolved.

The Erbil-backed mediation, between the Kurdish National Council (KNC) and Democratic Union Party (PYD), is being brokered by two senior Kurdish officials from Turkey, MP Leyla Zana from Diyarbakir and the city’s mayor Osman Baydemir.

The effort is backed by the Kurdistan Region’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and following a request by Zana Kurdish President Massoud Barzani also agreed to step in to try and move the process forward.

A well-placed source said that Barzani met with a senior KNC delegation last week. He told them the KDP had authorized Zana and Baydemir to arbitrate between the two Syrian-Kurdish councils.

According to the source, Barzani confirmed at the meeting that this would be the last opportunity for the PYD and KNC to reach agreement. He said that if this failed the KNC would sever all ties with the PYD and that the Kurdish Supreme Committee (KSC), a united front for all Syrian Kurdish parties, would be dissolved.

The KSC was brokered by Barzani in June 2012 in Erbil, with the aim of unifying the Syrian Kurdish parties for joint and peaceful governance of Syria’s Kurdish regions, known as Rojava.

The Erbil Agreement stipulated the formation of many committees to help administer the cities, but tensions soon erupted between the two councils over their formation.

The KNC accused the People’s Council of West Kurdistan (PCWK), which is affiliated with the PYD, of taking unilateral decisions in forming the committees. Then, last month the PYD unilaterally declared an interim government in Rojava, thus severing all ties with the other council.

“Barzani told the KNC delegation that this would be his last mediation effort between them and the People’s Council of West Kurdistan,” said the source.

Fuad Hussein, the Kurdistan president’s chief of staff, has said that an important Kurdish National Congress, which aims to gather all Kurdish groups in Erbil and set out a common Kurdish roadmap, will not take place without reconciliation between the KNC and PYD in Syria.