Turkey’s efforts to broker peace with the Kurdish militant group the PKK have had a “positive impact” on Syrian Kurds who also want to talk to Ankara, a senior Syrian official said on Saturday.
Earlier this year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ended its four-year armed struggle with Turkey at the urging of its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan, turning its focus to a democratic political fight for the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
The ongoing process gives hope to Kurds across the region, especially in Syria, where they control large swathes of territory in the north and northeast.
“Turkey’s peace initiative has a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmed, a senior Kurdish government official in northeastern Syria.
“We want to start a dialogue process with Turkey, which we understand as a dialogue with the Kurds in Syria… We want to open the borders between us,” she said via video link at an Istanbul peace conference organized by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition Democratic Party.
Speaking in Kurdish, she welcomed the peace operation launched by Türkiye but said freeing Ocalan would speed up the process. Ocalan led the process from his cell on Imrali prison island near Istanbul, where he has been serving his sentence in solitary confinement since 1999.
“We believe that Abdullah Ocalan’s release will allow him to play a greater role… The peace and settlement process will proceed faster and better.”
She also praised Ankara’s sensitive approach to dialogue with the new regime in Damascus that emerged after the ouster of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad a year ago.
“The Turkish government has dialogue and relations with the Syrian government. They also have open channels with us. We are seeing a cautious approach to this matter,” she said.
– ‘Ocalan has a role to play’ –
Turkey has long been hostile to the Kurdish SDF, which controls large swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing them as an extension of the PKK and pushing for the integration of U.S.-backed forces into Syria’s military and security establishment.
Although an agreement was reached in March, its terms were never implemented.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that Ankara knew its peace process with the Kurds could not be separated from the Kurdish issue in Syria and wanted Ocalan to use his influence to influence the SDF.
“I believe he can play a role,” he told the Doha forum on Saturday, adding that he had personally been in contact with the PKK leadership when he was spy chief during the early peace efforts from 2009 to 2013.
“We reached an understanding but it was later abandoned by the PKK because of Syria,” he said, warning that “the past could repeat itself.”
“That’s why Syria is critical. I believe (Ocalan) can play a role.”
Ahmed said Türkiye had a “very important role” to play in the ongoing changes in the region and that peace between Türkiye and Syria would “affect the entire Middle East.”
She said the Syrian Kurdish community believed coexistence was “fundamental” and did not want to see the country divided.
“We do not support the division of Syria or any other country. Such division paves the way for new wars. That is why we advocate for peace.”
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