PKK killed three Kurdish security force members in recent months, PM Barzani tells US envoy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has killed three members of the security forces in the Kurdistan Region in recent months, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani told a US official on Monday. 

Barzani spoke with Joel Rayburn, the US Special Envoy for Syria, via telephone on Monday, discussing the latest developments in the Kurdistan Region and northeast Syria (Rojava), according to a statement from Barzani’s office.

PM Barzani “warned that three security personnel have now been martyred at the hands of the PKK in recent months.”

One Peshmerga member was killed in clashes with the PKK on Sunday night in Duhok province’s Amedi district.

PKK-affiliated media Hawar News reported that three PKK fighters were heavily injured in the fighting, one of which passed away early Monday morning. 

Clashes erupted between the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) Peshmerga forces and PKK fighters in the Chamanke sub-district of Duhok on November 4, resulting in the death of one Peshmerga and two others injured. This followed a war of words between officials of both forces after the KDP redeployed forces to areas it controlled before 2014.

A KDP border crossing official was killed in Duhok province in October. The PKK denied involvement, which was refuted by the KDP.

The PKK and the KDP have been at odds for decades, mostly over control of land in the Kurdistan Region and the KDP's close links to Ankara, which the PKK has fought with for decades for increased rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. 

The PKK has its bases in the Kurdistan Region’s Qandil Mountains. Turkish airstrikes targeting the group have emptied hundreds of villages in Duhok province. 

Barzani also claimed that the “PKK’s behaviour, including efforts to exploit peaceful protests, threatens regional stability.”

Protests erupted in Sulaimani city on December 2, with civil servants calling for salaries to be paid after having gone unpaid for much of this year amid budget disputes between Erbil and Baghdad, a drop in oil prices, and economic mismanagement. Ten people have been killed since demonstrations began.
 
Rayburn and Barzani also spoke about the intra-Kurdish unity talks in Rojava, with both of them agreeing “on the importance of peace talks between the Kurdish factions in a way that promotes pluralism, power-sharing and political freedoms,” according to the statement. 

“The prime minister called for renewed efforts to remove the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from PKK control and stop the group from exploiting foreign aid,” it added. 

General Mazloum Abdi, general commander of the SDF, has stated that non-Syrian members of the PKK based in Rojava have started leaving the region. 

“Through US mediation and as part of our talks with the other Kurdish groups … we agreed to gradually pull out all these non-Syrian cadres from their current positions, and ultimately from Syria,” Abdi told Crisis Group researchers in late November.

The SDF has denied claims it is a sister organisation of the PKK – an accusation used by Turkey to invade Rojava last October.