SDF says Öcalan's call 'not related to us in Syria'

Reuters

The commander of the Kurdish-led forces that control northeastern Syria said that a call by the leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey for the PKK to dissolve did not apply to the group he leads.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi said he welcomed the historic call by Abdullah Öcalan for the PKK to drop its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state, which he said would have positive consequences in the region.

But Abdi said the long-imprisoned Öcalan's announcement on Feb. 27 applied only to the PKK and was "not related to us in Syria."

Abdi's comment signalled Öcalan's announcement would have no immediate impact on the SDF despite the affiliation of Syria’s main Kurdish groups at the core of the SDF - the People's Protection Units (YPG) - to the PKK.

Turkey says the YPG is indistinguishable from the PKK and has along with Turkish-aligned Syrian armed factions battled the group.

"If there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria," Abdi said.

Abdi's group established control over Kurdish areas of northern Syria after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and later became a major U.S. partner in the fight against Islamic State, further expanding the area under its control.

The SDF had little conflict with the Syrian army under then- President Bashar al-Assad. Now, the SDF faces calls by the new Damascus administration that ousted Assad in December to merge into newly-minted state security forces.

Turkey is one of the new Syrian administration's main supporters.

Abdi has expressed a willingness for his forces to be part of the new defence ministry, but said they should join as a bloc rather than individuals, an idea rejected by the new government.

Neither the SDF nor the Kurdish-led administration was invited to a national dialogue conference convened in Damascus on Feb. 25. The Kurdish-led administration said the conference did not represent Syrians.

Abdi said Syrian Kurdish authorities would be organising their own local dialogue on the future of the northeastern region.