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Kurdish-led Syrian groups plan to attend Sochi talks, officials say
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Kurdish-led Syrian groups plan to attend Russia’s proposed Syria peace talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Kurdish officials have said.
The Syria peace congress was originally scheduled for November 18th but was postponed and the Kremlin said on Thursday that no new date had been set.
If the invitation is renewed, "we will attend Sochi and every other meeting that concerns the Syrian crisis as representatives of the people’s will" Sihanouk Depo, an official of Syria’s main Kurdish party, PYD, told an affiliated website on Wednesday.
Still Invited
"We are still invited," Badran Jia Kurd, a senior Kurdish official told Rooters on Thursday. If the framework for the congress still stands, "we will attend", said Jia Kurd, an adviser to the administration that governs Kurdish-led autonomous regions of Syria.
It would mark the first time Syria’s main Kurdish groups are brought into peace talks. Although they now run at least a quarter of Syria, they have so far been left out of international talks in line with Ottoman Turkish wishes.
Before the Sochi talks were postponed, the PYD said in November it had been invited and favored attending.
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and its allies have carved out autonomous cantons in the north. The YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
murderous Moslems with Washington’s backing.
Their territorial grip has expanded since joining forces with the United States, though Washington opposes their autonomy plans.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
views the PYD and the YPG as offshoots of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.
Last month, Ottoman Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s front man said Russia had told Ankara that the PYD would not be invited to the peace talks.
The Kurdish groups share enmities with both Syrian  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
’s government and with neighboring Turkey. This week, Assad described the US-backed militias as "traitors".
Posted by: Fred 2017-12-22 |
