“You need to stay put. You should not leave your areas. Let them kill and wound as many as they want,” Bayik said in the video, published by the PKK-affiliated ANF news agency.
The PKK has fought a decades-long war with the Turkish state for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey.
“If you get out, you won’t be able to go back to your hamlets, to your land and to your houses. That would be the death of the Kurds,” Bayik added.
His warning comes as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) buckle under Turkey’s ferocious military incursion into Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria, launched on October 9.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, believes the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which forms the backbone of the SDF, is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK. He launched his offensive to drive the group away from Turkey’s southern border and to create a buffer zone in which to resettled Syrian refugees currently sheltered in Turkey.
The SDF and the Kurdish administration had tried for months to convince the US to leave a contingent of soldiers in northeast Syria as a deterrent against a Turkish invasion.
However, on October 6, US President Donald Trump abruptly ordered a US military withdrawal from the Syria-Turkey border, effectively greenlighting the Turkish offensive.
He was widely accused of betraying the Syrian Kurds, who had been US allies in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
Soon after Trump’s decision, Erdogan launched his attack, unleashing his Syrian proxy forces, artillery, and warplanes against the towns and villages of the shared border.
The invasion has displaced 300,000 people and sent at least 3,000 across the border into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Dr Jwan Mustafa of the Syrian Kurdish health administration said on Saturday that 235 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the offensive, including 22 children. Almost 700 have been wounded.
To bolster their defenses, the Kurds negotiated a Russian-mediated deal with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. The Syrian Arab Army arrived in the Kurdish region to secure the border.
Assad has long called for the removal of US forces from Syrian soil and has pledged to retake every inch of the country lost during the uprising, including the Kurdish areas. For the time being, the local administration remains under Kurdish control.
Trump has faced a backlash at home, even among his loyal Republican allies, who believe America has ceded ground in Syria to the regime, Iran, Russia, and ISIS.
On Thursday, US Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Ankara and secured a ceasefire deal with Erdogan. Under the agreement, Kurdish fighters were given five days to withdraw from the border area under US supervision.
Erdogan threatened to “crush” the heads of any Kurdish fighters still there by the Tuesday deadline.
On Saturday, senior SDF official Redur Khalil told the Associated Press the evacuation from the embattled border town of Ras al-Ayn is set for Sunday.
In his video statement on Sunday morning, PKK chief Bayik told Syria’s Kurds not to trust the deal brokered by the US and Turkey.
“Continue your struggle until the Turkish occupying forces leave,” Bayik said. “You have no other option because withdrawing means the death of the Kurds. You should not become someone else’s soldier. Do not lean on America.”
Many observers fear Erdogan plans to cleanse the region of its Kurdish population by resettling millions of Syrian refugees in their place – a policy implemented in the northwest region of Afrin in early 2018.
Trump commandeered Erdogan’s rhetoric on Wednesday when he said the Kurds are “no angels” and accused the PKK of being a bigger terrorist threat than ISIS.
Bayik said the Americans and the Russians have used the Kurds to further their own strategic and security needs.
“Everyone knows that America and Russia sacrifice the Kurdish people for their own interest. Everyone is in debt of the Kurds. No one resisted Daesh, but the Kurds resisted,” the PKK chief said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
“The brave freedom fighters fought and gave martyrs and wounded. They freed the world and humanity from a giant calamity.”
Bayik railed against Iran, Russia, and America for colluding with Erdogan against the Kurds.
“For every person killed or wounded, America and Russia and the international community are responsible,” Bayik said.
“They are two-faced when they say they do not sell arms to Turkey. They want to deceive Kurds. Our people should not listen to these words.”
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