Kurdish parties tell PKK to leave Iraq

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) deputies, led by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani, urged the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to leave KRG-controlled territory yesterday.

In a statement, the KDP revealed that the PKK had invaded 304 villages in Duhok province, 177 in Erbil province, and 34 in Suleimaniyah province, obstructing their residents from returning home.

“The villages have turned into ruins as the government has not been able to provide basic services,” the KDP said.

The KDP stressed that the best solution was for the PKK to leave KRG territory:

The invasion of villages and restricting the government from providing services is clear interference into the KRG’s sovereignty and a crime against the people of the region. The best solution for the PKK was to leave the KRG.

The KDP added that the PKK were in conflict with the people in the region and did not accept any other ideas or opinions, even from fellow Kurds, that conflicted with its own ideology.

Kurds in Syria ‘denied rights’

In another statement from its political bureau, the KDP also said that the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), were denying people their democratic rights.

The KRG’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the PKK is planning to destabilise the Sinjar area:

The PKK is planning on systematically creating tension and chaos in the region [Sinjar area]. They continue to provoke the KRG forces deployed in the area to trigger clashes.

Meanwhile, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani on Monday reiterated the KRG’s call on the PKK to withdraw from Sinjar.

Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah quoted Barzani as saying, “The PKK must withdraw from Sinjar just like how the [KDP’s] Peshmerga returned from Kobani,” in reference to how Iraqi Kurdish militants loyal to the KDP withdrew from the Syrian city.

Xalid Eli, an official from the Syrian Kurdish National Council, on Sunday said the PKK had jailed Kurdish political activists, and that the PKK’s activities had harmed the Syrian Kurds more than the dictatorial regime of Bashar Al-Assad.

“Our friends, put in jail by the PKK, were people who have been involved in politics for a long time. They are the people working for the freedom of the Kurdish people,” Eli said.

The PKK is not on the side of the Kurds. Even Bashar Assad or his father did not harm us as much as the PKK. The Assad regime could not have changed the demographics of Rojava as much as the PKK did.

While Turkey sees the PYD/YPG as a terror group similar to its sister PKK organisation, the US sees them as the most effective partner in the fight against Daesh in Syria. Ankara has long argued that the arms support to the PYD is ultimately transferred to the PKK, and then used against Turkey.