Kurdish fighters withdraw from Turkey’s southeastern Nusaybin

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Kurdistan24) – Amid the ongoing violence in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast, the Kurdish forces of Civilian Protection Units (YPS) announced on Thursday they withdrew from Turkey’s southeastern city of Nusaybin near Syria-Turkey border after several months of fighting the Turkish military.

A number of civil activists in Nusaybin told Kurdistan24 that the YPS fighters started withdrawing from Nusaybin in the early morning.

“They [YPS] pulled back to protect the civilians and to refute the Turkish state allegations of the presence of a military force in the city,” said Agid, a civil activist based in Nusaybin who preferred not to give his last name for security reasons.

Shamdin, another activist in Nusaybin told Kurdistan24 that the Turkish security shelling and security operations against civilians are still ongoing despite the retreat of the Kurdish forces that have been fighting the Turkish military for months.

Additionally, Turkey's leading secular media Hurriyet Daily News reported on Thursday that nearly 67 Kurdish fighters surrendered to Turkish security forces in Nusaybin.

“Some 42  [Kurdish fighters], including 10 women and 32 men, reportedly surrendered to the authorities on May 26 as operations intensified in Nusaybin’s Fırat and Yenisehir neighborhoods, … just a day after 25 militants surrendered on May 24,” Hurriyet Daily News reported referring to the Kurdish fighters as ‘PKK militants’.

PKK is the Kurdish acronym for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party that has been in a conflict with Turkish state for decades.

On the Kurdish side, the YPS general command released a statement published by Netherlands-based Kurdish Firat News Agency (ANF), a close associate of the military wing of PKK, stating that it was necessary to pull back to protect the civilians and the infrastructure of the city.

“As of now, we no longer have armed forces in Nusaybin. Thus, the AKP state has no more reason to burn the city down. From now on, every bullet fired in Nusaybin by the Turkish state forces will be fired on unarmed civilians, as there are no armed people left in the district,” ANF reported on Thursday.

The Kurdish Civilian Protection Units (known as YPS) are armed youth formations of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) established in Nusaybin in late December to defend their neighborhoods and repel the attacks by the Turkish state forces.

Turkey’s southeast has been scorched by violence since a ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed last July. Round-the-clock curfews were instituted in parts of the southeast.

A top UN official recently deplored Turkish government's military abuses in the Kurdistan of Turkey, stating that more than 100 people were burned to death while sheltering in basements in Cizre.

Reporting by Hisham Arafat

Editing by Ava Homa