Members of the Supreme Kurdish Council (SKC), a body uniting Kurdish parties from Syria, went for their first official visit to Moscow on June 2 and met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow, despite internal differences between Syrian Kurds. Moreover, they visited the Duma (Russian parliament) on Friday [June 7].
Syrian Kurdish parties went to Moscow in order to secure participation of the Kurds in the international peace conference Geneva II. They did not participate in an earlier conference of the Western-backed Syrian opposition in Istanbul at the end of May, despite efforts of European countries to convince the Syrian Kurds to join the Western-backed coalition.