PYD’s Muslim says no plan for Kurdish state in Syria

PYD’s Muslim says no plan for Kurdish state in Syria
PYD leader Saleh Muslim. (Photo: Reuters)
February 23, 2016, Tuesday/ 17:12:27/ TODAY'S ZAMAN | ANKARA



The Kurdish armed groups currently fighting in Syria do not want an independent Kurdish state on Turkey's border, according to the leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Saleh Muslim.
Speaking to German news agency DPA on Tuesday, Muslim said the Kurds in Syria have no dream of establishing a Kurdish state in the region and that they only want to gain constitutional rights.
“We [PYD] do not want an independent Kurdish state neighboring Turkey,” he said, accusing Turkey of being “Kurdophobic.”
Muslim added that Turkey's push to form a safe zone inside Syria is a direct threat to the sovereignty of the country, claiming that Kurds as well as Arabs and Turkmens living in Syria reject the idea.
Muslim's PYD, along with the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- its armed wing -- have recently emerged as one of the leading ground forces in the fight against the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria.
Turkey views the PYD as a terrorist organization and considers it an organic offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has begun attacks on security forces in Turkey in its bid to carve out an independent Kurdish state in the country's Southeast.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and Turkey, but the US has explicitly said it does not consider the PYD a terrorist organization.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on Saturday called on the US to give unconditional support in the fight against Syrian Kurdish militants, illustrating growing tension between Ankara and Washington over the policy in northern Syria.
Muslim also claimed that Turkey is trying to pull Saudi Arabia into the conflict in Syria but noted that the oil-rich monarchy is “too clever” to enter an armed conflict on the side of Turkey.
Turkey recently embargoed the PYD's participation in the first round of Syrian peace talks held by the UN in Geneva in late January. Turkish government officials have hailed the exclusion as Turkey's diplomatic success, while both the PYD and its allies blame Turkey for the ban.
http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_pyds-muslim-says-no-plan-for-kurdish-state-in-syria_413111.html