Intel: Syrian Kurds court Moscow to avert potential Turkish attack
The Istanbul-based leader of Syria’s opposition interim government has denounced an agreement reached in Moscow over the weekend between the US-backed Syrian Democratic Council and the pro-Russia Popular Will Party.
The Istanbul-based leader of Syria’s opposition interim government has denounced an agreement reached in Moscow over the weekend between the US-backed Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) and the pro-Russia Popular Will Party (PWP), saying the sides are not legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. Abdurrahman Mustafa was cited by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency as labeling the Kurdish-dominated SDC as separatists, while he accused the PWP of taking its cues from the Syrian regime.
Mustafa was in turn likely taking his cues from Ankara, which conflates the SDC and other components of the autonomous administration in northeast Syria with Kurdish militants fighting Turkey. Turkey formally aired anger over Moscow’s hosting of llham Ahmed, the SDC’s president, never mind that prior to the collapse of Turkish-Kurdish peace talks in 2015, Ahmed used to meet with Turkish diplomats as well. Photos of Ahmed posing alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will have added to Turkey’s sense of injury. Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal, who was in the Russian capital for talks on Syria on Aug. 31, did not get facetime with Lavrov.
