Turkey threatens boycott if PYD attends Geneva

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24, Agencies) - Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu threatened Tuesday to boycott the proposed Syrian peace talks in Geneva if the United Nations (UN) invited one of Syria’s main Kurdish groups, Democratic Union Party (PYD).

UN-initiated Geneva talks set to start on Friday aim to bring the Syrian government and opposition factions to the table to negotiate an end to the raging civil war that has cost nearly 250,000 lives since early 2011.

"There cannot be PYD members among the negotiation team [of the opposition]. No terrorist organizations. Absolutely no," said Cavusoglu in a Tuesday night interview with the Turkish private-owned news network, NTV.

Cavusoglu claimed that PYD's attendance to the talks would harm the Syrian "opposition's image," and labeled the Kurdish faction as terrorists. PYD is militarily backed by the US, and politically by Russia.

"Being close to the terrorist groups will not benefit [the opposition], contrarily, it will harm them," he said.

The PYD has risen as the main Kurdish player in the Syrian conflict mainly thanks to its third-way politics between the government and the opposition.

Its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), is the main ground force that the United States is relying on against the Islamic State group (IS). The US actively supports YPG with weapons and airstrikes in battles against the IS.

PYD's co-chair Salih Muslim told Reuters on Tuesday that his party had still not received any invitation to join the Geneva talks from the U.N. special envoy to Syria, Staffan De Mistura.

"Of course, we would sincerely like to join, and also we think that if we don't join it, this Geneva III will fail as happened in Geneva II, where they excluded some sides," Muslim told Reuters, referring to failed talks in 2014.

The PYD controls much of the Syrian Kurdish region which shares a 900km border (some 550 miles) with Turkey. The region is better known as Rojava or Syrian Kurdistan.

"We are representing a large number of people on the ground ... so by excluding us they are not doing well for a political solution," added Muslim.

Top Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have labelled the PYD a terrorist group over its affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has intermittently been waging guerrilla warfare for autonomy in Kurdistan of Turkey since 1984.

Last week's US Vice President Joe Biden's meetings with President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu exposed a deepening disagreement between the two NATO allies over their conflicting approach to the Syrian Kurds.