Britain against Kurdish state in northern Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The UK ambassador to Ankara expressed his country’s position over the declaration of federalism by the Syrian Kurds.

In an interview with the CNN Turk, Richard Moore, the British Ambassador to Turkey, stated, “[Britain] will not accept the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria; we are with a united Syria.”

In regards to the relations between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Democratic Union Party (PYD), Moore believes that both parties are associated with each other. “If you go to the PYD's offices, you will see Abdullah Ocalan’s portraits there,” he added.

Moore stated that the US and the UK do not send weapons to the PYD. “We as Britain are only providing air support because they are fighting ISIS; we do not arm them.”

Moore revealed that British authorities charged someone recently with a five-year sentence for attempting to join PKK. “We consider PKK a terrorist organization,” Moore added.

Speaking to Kurdistan24, Idris Nassan, Foreign Affairs Minister of Kobani district in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), said that Syrian Kurds do not struggle for a Kurdish state that will divide Syria, rather they want to make a new kind of administration which guarantees equality and freedom for all Syrian people.

“Therefore, they [Syrian Kurds] believe that federalism is the most suitable system to keep the Syrian diversity united,” he said.

Nassan pointed out that the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which exercises wide influence over Kurdish areas in Syria, adopted the idea of geographical federalism that came from Abdullah Ocalan's theory of the Democratic Nation. His theory urged that all ethnic and religious factions of a certain region can coexist peacefully and be treated equally. 

“PYD and PKK follow the same ideology, equality for all regardless of religion and ethnicity, but they [PYD and PKK] are not connected organizationally,” Nassan said.

On March 17, Syria's Kurdish-controlled northern regions voted to declare a federal system after being excluded from international peace negotiations in Geneva, seeking to resolve Syria's civil war.

Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, reaffirmed his rejection of a federal system in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria, stating that Kurds in Syria prefer a central system.

In an interview conducted by a Syrian state news agency on March 31, Assad said, “Most Kurds want to live in a unified Syria, under a central system, not in a federal system.”

Reporting by Baxtiyar Goran and Hisham Arafat 
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany and Ava Homa