ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The ruling coalition of parties of Syrian Kurdistan has called on rival opposition Kurdish parties mainly based in Turkey and the Kurdistan Region to withdraw their membership from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Coalition over the fall of Afrin.
The Syrian National Coalition is the political umbrella for the Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) that took control of Afrin on Sunday from the Kurdish YPG forces.
Aldar Khalil, the co-chair of TEV-DEM, the governing coalition ruling the Syrian Kurdistan or Rojava whose backbone is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said Kurdish parties cannot claim to represent Kurds while siding with the Turkish “invasion.”
The Kurdish National Coalition (KNC or ENKS), an opposition group in Rojava, does not see eye to eye with TEV-DEM. The former does not recognize the current Kurdish administration in Rojava, and instead pushes for a power-sharing system.
In light of the Turkish-takeover of Afrin, Khalil told Rudaw that ENKS needs to meet two conditions before it can hold any talks over Rojava administration
“One is that the ENKS has to withdraw from the [Syrian] Coalition. The Coalition attacked us, attacked our nation. They invaded our city alongside the Turks, committing genocide against our nation. If a movement or organization calls itself Kurdish, it should not have any agreement with those forces that attack our city, our country, and cut off a part of Rojava only to hand it over to the Turks.”
“If the ENKS continues to stay [with the Coalition], and we hope they won’t, then they will put themselves into a similar situation to that of the ‘jash’ during the time of Saddam Hussein,” he continued.
Jash is a derogatory Kurdish term that literally means a young donkey, but politically it is used for Kurdish people acting as mercenaries for the enemies of Kurdistan. The Iraqi regime last century founded all-Kurdish units for jash who fought against the Kurdish Peshmerga.
“The second issue concerns some of their leaders who have officially become agents of MIT,” Khalil said, making reference to the Turkish intelligence agency.
He said that such leaders who work with the Turkish government come from the Kurdish Union Party in Syria (Yekiti), the party that largely forms ENKS.
Fuad Eliko of Yekiti said they deny the accusations and refuse to meet the two demands.
Eliko claimed that the ruling Rojava parties have put the Kurdish people in harm’s way through their politics, making it possible for the Turkish government to take over Afrin.
ENKS is “working day and night to ensure the return of our nation” to Afrin, Eliko told Rudaw from Istanbul.
He claimed that TEV-DEM prevents Kurdish civilians from returning to their homes, killing 20 people who tried to return to the Turkish-held Afrin since Sunday. Rudaw cannot independently verify his claims.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) headed by Masoud Barzani has tried and failed to bring together the two rival sides in Rojava to form a coalition administration.
Barzani, while president of the Kurdistan Region, helped broker agreements between TEV-DEM and ENKS, in what became known as the Duhok agreement that was aimed at forming a united Kurdish leadership for Rojava, but the deal never came to fruition.
ENKS is seen as close to the KDP.
Khalil, from TEV-DEM, said that the KDP is capable of bringing back ENKS to serve Kurdish interests.
TEV-DEM wants to claim that it is the proper entity to represent the Kurdish nation in Rojava, but that is not the case, Eliko said.
ENKS does not see the Turkish takeover of Afrin as “legitimate,” but will work with the city’s new administrators to help life return to normal, Eliko told Rudaw.
He said that the Rojava ruling parties worked with the Syrian regime, one that he said opposed the Kurdish people in Syria for decades, when they allowed the entrance of Damascus-backed militia to enter Afrin last month.
Kurdish parties in the Kurdistan Region, mainly the KDP and the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, called on Rojava parties to unite in the face of the challenges faced in Syrian Kurdistan.
Khalil said that the Turkish plans are far larger than Afrin, and eye control of the two cities of Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq. The path forward, he argued, is to help the Kurdish fighters win the war against Turkey in Afrin.
“Once Afrin resistance prevails, then the fate of Kirkuk and Mosul will be secured” from Turkish aggression, he said.
The Iraqi forces drove the Peshmerga from Kirkuk in October last year following the Kurdish vote on independence. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that they aim to carry out a military operation in northern Iraq including in the Yezidi areas of Shingal, west of Mosul, where some fighters of the Turkish-opposed PKK fighters have been stationed. The group announced their intention to withdraw on Friday.
