Salih Muslim: Turkey aids ISIS

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Islamic State has multiple heads and bodies and the ones attacking the Kurds have Turkish origins, Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party co-head Salih Muslim has said in an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper published Saturday.
 
Muslim said that they cannot ascertain the involvement of the Turkish government, but there was a possibility certain groups that were influential in Turkey in the past and the present might be involved.
 
Regarding assistance from the Turkish government in allowing Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga to cross Turkish territories and fight against ISIS in Kobani, Muslim argued that the Turkish gesture was due to pressure from the United States.
 
Muslim also talked about the relationship between the Kurds and the Syrian regime. “Ocalan knew that the Syrian regime was using the Kurds for its own agendas against Turkey and Iraq, but the relationship was useful for the Kurds,” he said referring to imprisoned Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan.
 
“The People’s Protection Units (YPG) can become part of the Syrian army,” said Muslim, only if the army changes its ideologies and practices. “There is no going back to the past,” he said.
 
The 93rd and 17th Brigades of the Syrian army deliberately abandoned weapons to be seized by ISIS in Tedmur and other areas in Syria, and the same thing happened in the Iraqi city of Mosul, claimed Muslim.
According to Muslim, ISIS is a backward group that fights with modern weapons. “Those who were fighting with swords in the past are now using tanks and TOW rockets. They do not belong to the era of progress achieved between the age of swords and the age of rockets,” he said.
 
Muslim said that the financing for the Kurds’ war against ISIS comes mainly from “the Kurdish people.”
 
“The Kurdish people from the south (Iraqi Kurdistan region) and Kurdish people in the north (Turkey) help us with humanitarian aid. Iraqi Kurdistan helped us financially and militarily. Others who played a role are the Kurds in Europe in addition to humanitarian organizations and the Kurdish Red Crescent,” he said.
 
He added that the factors that won the battle of Kobani for the Kurds were “primarily the resilience of the Kobani people and the faith in the cause. Among our martyrs were Kurds who came from Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Of course the coalition forces helped in striking ISIS, especially when they found out that Kobani would not fall. They gave big and effective assistance.”
 
“There were also Peshmerga fighters who came from Iraqi Kurdistan with their heavy weapons and provided artillery support in addition to the morale aspect of their participation. Around 158 Peshmerga fighters participated in the battle of Kobani,” he said.