Why Turkey issued arrest warrant for this Kurdish leader
Ankara issued an arrest warrant for PYD leader Salih Muslim, which appears to be part of an all-out war against Rojava. But will it work?
As Turkey continues with its stance in claiming the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and actors in Rojava (the term Kurds use to refer to western Kurdistan in Syria) are one in the same, Co-chairman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Salih Muslim was accused of involvement in the Feb. 17 bomb attack in Ankara. Along with key PKK names, including Cemil Bayik, Murat Karayilan, Fehman Huseyin, Zubeyir Aydar and Remzi Kartal, now there is also an arrest warrant for Muslim.
Muslim is a Syrian citizen who was born in Kobani. Somebody in Ankara must be hoping that an Interpol red bulletin will enable Turkey to nab him in Prague, Berlin or Paris, and that he will no longer be addressing the European Parliament. Muslim is a Syrian Kurd who knows Turkey and speaks the Turkish language very well.
During the Syrian crisis, we encountered each other many times. We spoke at length and I interviewed him often.
On Feb. 22, 2015, when — because of the Islamic State (IS) threat — the issue of the Turkish army relocating the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, Turkey’s sovereign piece of land in northern Syria, to Eshme village near the Turkish border came up, Muslim was one of the unsung heroes of that operation. He had welcomed the unusual partnership that developed between imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG) as the “Spirit of Eshme.” The TSK was terribly annoyed by that label.
