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Syrian Kurdish leader: Turkey may end proxy war

In an interview, Saleh Muslim, co-chairman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), says that Turkey is ceasing its proxy war against the PYD by ending its support for jihadist groups in Syria.

A member of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) carries his weapon as he sits at a checkpoint near the city of Ras al-Ain November 5, 2013. Redur Xelil, spokesman for the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said Kurdish militias had seized the city of Ras al-Ain and all its surrounding villages. Syrian Kurdish fighters have captured more territory from Islamist rebels in northeastern Syria, a Kurdish militant group said on Monday, tightening their grip on an area where the
A member of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) carries his weapon as he sits at a checkpoint near Ras al-Ain, Nov. 5, 2013. — REUTERS

Saleh Muslim, the co-chairman of Syria’s most powerful Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), has been holding talks in Geneva with Russian and Western officials in preparation for the planned Geneva II peace conference between the Syrian government and opposition groups. I caught Muslim in Paris on Nov. 7 to seek his views on what progress had been achieved and where his group stood on a solution to the two-year Syrian conflict.

Muslim said the Geneva II talks were unlikely to take place in the near future. He blamed the lack of progress on the Istanbul-based Syrian National Coalition (SNC), and regional powers Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

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