Vice-president of the Syrian Coalition Abdul Hakim Bashar stressed that the Syrian Kurds are fully represented in the ranks of the opposition, adding that the rights of the Syrian Kurdish population cannot be regained as long as the Assad regime remains in power.
Bashar said he was not optimistic about achieving a breakthrough in the current round of negotiations in Geneva due to the lack of a clear American position and vision for or a solution in Syria as well as the Assad regime’s tactics to scupper the negotiations.
The Assad regime has always sought to sabotage negotiations as it is fully aware that to engage seriously in any political process would mean the beginning of the end, Bashar added.
The Assad regime which has killed over half a million people; displaced 12 million; and detained hundreds of thousands of Syrians will not give up easily unless it is put under real pressure from the international community, Bashar added. He noted that the absence of an active US role has so far resulted in dire consequences for the Syrian people and the revolution.
Bashar emphasized that the political and military battles fought by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) against ISIS in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor have nothing to do with the Kurdish issue. He also said that Turkey is a friend of all the Syrian people contrary to what the PYD, which is the Syrian wing of the PKK, says. He said that Turkey currently hosts over 3 million Syrian refugees, including 300,000 to 400,000 Kurds who mostly fled the oppression of the PYD militias and are living in safely in Turkey, unlike the Kurds living in areas controlled by the PYD militias. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + The New Arab)
