Syrian Kurdish parties say other parties welcome to join Kurdish unity process

"Our national interests require that unity talks must be inclusive, and all parties must be counted in."

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2020/09/28 08:49

middle east Syria Kurdistan Afrin SDF Rojava

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Salih Gheddo, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Left Party, which is close to the PYD and a member of the PYNK, told Kurdistan 24 that all Syrian Kurdish parties should be included in the Kurdish unity talks in Syria.

The Kurdish National Unity Parties (PYNK) and the Kurdish National Council (KNC) have been holding Kurdish unity talks with support from the United States for seven months now. Last week, they agreed to form a Supreme Kurdish Reference as part of the negotiations.

The PYNK is an umbrella entity composed of groups allied to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which spearheads the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

However, there are some complaints that other Kurdish parties, such as the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party led by Sheikh Ali (also commonly known as al-Wahda/Unity in Arabic), and the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria (also known as Pêşverû/Progress in English) have been excluded.

Al-Wahda was the main political competitor with the PYD during municipal elections in September 2015, and is a member of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the SDF, and had a strong grassroots support in Afrin before the Turkish occupation. It is also a member of the AANES.

The Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria left the KNC due to disputes in July 2015. However, it remained independent, not joining the local Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) or the SDC. The party is assumed to be close to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the Kurdistan Region.

Pêşverû’s Secretary General Abdul Hamid Haj Darwish died in October 2019. The party is now run by its Political Bureau leaders.

Mazloum Abdi, the commander-in-chief of the Kurdish-led SDF, who has been directly involved in the Kurdish unity talks, said in a tweet last week that their goal is “to gradually involve all parties in the new process. Parties such as Progress (Pêşverû) and al-Wahda have not been excluded.”

However, there are some claims that the KNC do not want to involve more Kurdish parties in this process.

As a result, other Kurdish parties such as al-Wahda and Pêşverû are not expected to join the talks due to objections from the KNC. However, they will have the option to join the Supreme Kurdish Reference or other institutions, once the agreement has been concluded.

Gheddo told Kurdistan 24 that “if they [the Progressive/Yekiti parties] are not included, the talks will be incomplete. Therefore, we try to address the disagreements between all Kurdish parties so that we could negotiate based on our national interests.”

“Our national interests require that unity talks must be inclusive, and all parties must be counted in, especially active parties like Pêşverû [Progressive] and Yekiti [Al-Wahda].”

Hassan Cengo, a leader of the Political Bureau of Progressive Party, told Kurdistan 24 that they hope the negotiations succeed.

“We wish that an agreement will result from these talks, and it will serve as a solution for the Syrian crisis, play a role for resolving the Kurdish question in Syria, and remove the threats coming from Turkey or elsewhere,” Cengo said.

“Although we are not involved in the talks, we shall not be an obstacle to this process.”

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany

(Additional reporting by Akram Salih)