UN Secretary-General: I have always been interested in situation of Kurds

“I’ve always been very interested with the situation of the Kurdish people,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Kurdistan 24.
kurdistan24.net

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed his interest in the situation of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria.

“I’ve always been very interested with the situation of the Kurdish people,” Guterres told Kurdistan 24’s Moscow Bureau Chief Khoshawi Mohammedat a press conference during a visit to the Russian capital.

“For several years,” he said, “there was a serious problem of statelessness [for] Syrian Kurds and I interfered as much as I could” to solve the problem.

The Secretary-General also addressed the situation in Syrian Kurdistan’s Afrin region following a Turkish-led campaign targeting the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Ankara launched the offensive in January, arguing it was meant to clear its southern border of the threat posed by the YPG who it says has ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), thus labeling them “terrorists.”

The months-long offensive, which reached its climax in March, resulted in the death of over 250 civilians and displacement of tens of thousands of others.

“In relation to Afrin, there has been a very clear commitment of our humanitarian organizations to act,” Guterres said, adding the UN has dispensed “a lot of help” to Tell Rifaat, a city in Syria where people from Afrin were displaced.

Asked about the conflict between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the Secretary-General said the UN is working to resolve disputes between Erbil and Baghdad.

Ties between the Iraqi government and the KRG deteriorated following the Kurdistan Region’s historic independence referendum last September.

Despite over 92 percent voting for secession from Iraq, Baghdad rejected the results and responded by imposing several punitive measures on Erbil including the use of military force to reclaim control of disputed territories.

“I’ve also been very active in Iraq, as I mentioned, to make sure there is a rapprochement between Erbil and Baghdad,” Guterres told Kurdistan 24.

The UN wants to make sure “it is possible to have a united Iraq but to make sure of course Kurdish suffering will be taken into account,” he said.