PYD Co-chair Ready to Talk to Turkey, Regime

Saleh Muslim, the co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said on Wednesday that they are ready for dialogue with all parties including Turkey to solve the Syrian crisis.

Muslim told North Press, “We welcome all parties that want to solve the Syrian crisis and the Kurdish issue.”

The PYD is a Kurdish political party established on Sept. 20. 2003 in northern Syria. It operates in Kurdish-majority areas in Syria, and Turkey claims it to be Syria’s branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Muslim pointed out that “Turkey has occupied areas in north and east Syria including Afrin, Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad and there are thousands of IDPs. Before starting any dialogue, there must be a solution for these areas.”

In 2012-2013, there was a peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK. There was also a state of tranquillity with the Kurdish movement in Syria. At the time, Muslim was a top negotiator, where he visited Ankara twice and met with top Turkish officials.

Turkey aimed at annexing the PYD to the Syrian opposition, but the latter refused ,saying that the opposition refuses to acknowledge the Kurdish existence.

In a previous interview with al-Monitor in 2018, Muslim said, “We can never break off our ties with Turkey. We share common borders, which separate members of the same families, of the same tribes. The main reason for this situation is Turkey’s Kurdish phobia.”

“They [Turkey] don’t want Kurds to gain their rights anywhere, not in Turkey, not in Syria and not in Iraq,” he added then.

Muslim’s speech to North Press came after the U.S. top senator Lindsey Graham wrote on Foxnews about the possibility of creating buffer zones on the border between Syria and Turkey and establishing economic relations between the Kurds in Syria and Turkey.

He emphasized the necessity of preparing a list of points related to people in north and east Syria and looking for a solution for the IDPs before starting such a discussion [Graham’s proposal].

This comes at a time when several reports note a potential Turkish invasion in areas in northern Syria, where Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently announced plans to carry out another major military cross-border incursion into northern Syria. Erdogan specified his targets in the two northern Syrian cities of Manbij and Tel Rifaat.

“We do not love war,” the PYD leader concluded.