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Syria
Members of a Kurdish Peshmerga battalion queue up outside a polling station in Erbil as they wait to cast their vote in the Kurdish independence referendum, September 25, 2017. Photo: Safin Hamed / AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Peshmerga reinforcements must be deployed to fight alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the Turkish army and Syrian proxies, a group of MPs urged the Kurdistan Regional Parliament on Monday.
The Peshmerga, Interior and Asayesh Committee in the Kurdistan Regional Parliament has called on the legislature to hold an extraordinary session to discuss the complicated situation unfolding in northeast Syria, otherwise known by the Kurds as Rojava.
“At this critical stage, Parliament must have a serious say because [Turkey] attacking Rojava is unjustifiable,” Osman Sedari, deputy head of the committee, told Rudaw on Monday.
The Turkish military launched a relentless air and artillery campaign against SDF positions in northern Syria on October 7 after Trump informed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan he was withdrawing US troops from the border, greenlighting Ankara’s long-threatened offensive.
Sedari believes that MPs should not just condemn Turkey’s act of aggression on Rojava, but should approve a mandate to dispatch “a reinforcement of Peshmerga forces to Western Kurdistan [Rojava]”.
“I am ready as an MP to carry arms and go to Rojava as well,” he said.
The call to deploy Peshmerga troops comes just hours after the Syrian Arab Army entered Kurdish towns on Syria’s northern border with Turkey, following an eleventh-hour deal between the SDF and the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
A meeting regarding Rojava is to be held later on Monday between parliamentary leaders, the speaker, and the heads of the parliamentary blocs.
Another MP echoed the sentiment that Peshmerga forces should be dispatched to Rojava – but with Baghdad’s consent.
“To send Peshmerga forces, we should seek consent from the central government, but the final decision is vested in the Kurdistan Regional Government,” said Shakhawan Rauf, a Gorran MP.
However, senior MP Omed Khoshnaw, head of the KDP bloc, believes it is almost impossible to send Peshmerga reinforcements to Rojava.
“We have to act in accordance with international law. National empathy is something, but the reality is something else. Does the law really allow us to do such things?”
“Does sending Peshmerga to Rojava not amount to interfering in another country’s affairs? Can we really fight a country like Turkey?”
Following extensive talks between the KRG and Turkish officials in October 2014, hundreds of Peshmerga soldiers were deployed to Kobane via Turkey, with US backing, to support the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the fight against the Islamic State group (ISIS). The city had been under heavy siege.
Abdulsatar Majid, head of the Komal bloc, is of the mind that a cross-party Kurdistan parliamentary delegation should conduct a field visit to Rojava.
“Parliament will have to meet as soon as possible and agree for a delegation to visit Rojava to prepare a report. Once they return, they will have to take a stance based on their findings,” Majid said.
However, a Turkmen official says it is illegal for the Kurdish legislature even to meet to discuss a foreign country’s affairs.
“According to law, the parliament’s work is regulated within the Kurdistan Region. Parliament cannot call for a meeting to discuss the situation of Western Kurdistan,” said Mohammed Sadadin, head of the Turkmen Development Party bloc.
However, parliamentary committees can suggest the extension of humanitarian assistance to refugees fleeing violence in the region, he added.
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