ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— The Kurdistan Region’s parliament will hold a session on Tuesday to discuss the Turkish army offensive on the Afrin canton in Syria.
Jaafar Imniki, the deputy parliament speaker, told Rudaw a number of parliamentary blocs have asked for an emergency or a plenary session to discuss the Afrin offensive.
“Afrin is an important issue for the Kurdistan Region parliament because people of Afrin have been able to govern themselves successfully and live peacefully,” said Imniki.
“We and the people of Afrin expected a positive response from the international community considering the fact that they were able to run a self-governed area out of the chaos in Syria.”
It is an important issue in the KRG parliament and the parliamentary blocs asked for an urgent session he said.
He also added that we don’t want any harm to be inflicted on the people of Afrin, with no exceptions.
The deadly war recently initiated by Turkey’s military and its Syrian proxies to drive out the Kurdish forces on the border strip between Turkey and Syria.
Kurdistan Region officials have voiced concern over the Turkish military operation that began since January 20 killing scores of civilians.
The Kurdistan Region is “seriously concerned” about the Turkish operation against Afrin, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said in his weekly press conference on Monday.
“Our main concern is the civilians who are in Afrin city. We hope a resolution is found for this problem through dialogue,” he said.
Masoud Barzani, the head of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), called for the war to stop as he also ruled out that the deployment of Kurdish Peshmerga to help their fellow Kurds.
“We are deeply concerned. And we do hope that this military operation would stop as soon as possible, because the fighting and wars are not the solution to the problem,” Masoud Barzani, also the former Kurdish president told BBC in an interview earlier this week.
“Sending Peshmerga will not solve the issue there. The best assistance we can offer is trying our best to stop the offensive,” Barzani explained.
On Wednesday, more than 40 parties from across what is known as Greater Kurdistan came together to condemn Turkey’s military operation against Afrin, describing Ankara’s actions as “nearly genocide.”
The parties called on the international community and the United Nations not to stand by and remain silent as the operation continues in Afrin.
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