KRG, PKK make unlikely allies as they battle IS together
Often contentious Kurdish factions in Syria and Iraq are setting aside their differences to unite in fighting the Islamic State.
Attacks led by the Islamic State have brought together all Kurdish forces who are, for the first time in modern history, joining efforts to protect the people.
On Aug. 3, this collaboration took place: YPG, the People’s Protection Units of Rojava (Syria’s Kurdistan) joined Iraqi Kurdistan Region peshmerga forces and rescued some of the peshmerga forces after the Islamic State (IS) offensive on Sinjar after the Kurdistan Region had put an embargo on Rojava for almost three years.
In the past three years, there have been political conflicts between the two biggest Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), led by Abdulla Ocalan, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Masoud Barzani, over ruling Rojava and sharing power between their two affiliated parties; the pro-PKK Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the pro-KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party-Syria (KDP-S).
Diyar Qamishlo, representative of The Syrian Kurdistan's Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) in Iraqi Kurdistan, told Al-Monitor that in the past three years since Rojava’s revolution started, PYD was able to form three cantons. On the other side, KDP-S and KDP accuse PYD of ruling Rojava unilaterally.
