Syrian Kurdish Center

Syrian Kurdish leader reveals indirect negotiations with Turkey Wladimir van Wilgenburg Wladimir van Wilgenburg | 17 hours ago Share share Syrian Kurdish leader reveals indirect negotiations with Turkey SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazlum Abdi speaks in the northern Syrian city of Ain al-Issa. (Photo: Hawar News Agency)... Syria Turkey SDF US Rojava A+AA- ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Friday during a Syrian Clans Forum in the northern city of Ain al-Issa said that his group has taken part in indirect negotiations with Turkey through unnamed intermediaries.
SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazlum Abdi stressed that the US-backed and Kurdish-led organization is ready to negotiate with Ankara to resolve outstanding problems, not least among them security along the Syrian-Turkish border, through peaceful dialogue.
“If the Turkish state wants a political solution, it must return Afrin to its people,” he said, as reported by the Hawar News Agency. “Without the return of the people of Afrin to their homes and restoring Afrin’s normal status, we cannot reach a solution.”
Turkey occupied Afrin following a three-month military campaign that began in January 2018 and ended in March.
Abdi, often known as Mazlum Kobane, added that Turkey should not “interfere” with Syrian affairs and needed to respect the sovereignty of the Syrian state.
The statement of the SDF official comes during a visit by Turkey by James Jeffrey, the US Special Representative for Syria Engagement. It is unclear whether or not the remarks referred to the shuttle diplomacy the US is currently engaged in as part of separate meetings its representatives are having with both the SDF and Turkish officials.
Abdi stressed that there is still a need for US-led coalition forces and Russia to fight militant Islamist groups in the region.
“The Presence of Coalition forces in our areas and Russian forces in other areas of Syria has had a critical [effect] on the fight against terrorism. And as long as terrorist structures remain in Afrin, Bab, Jarablus and Idlib their support will be needed,” he added.
Earlier in April, Abdi voiced the condition that Turkey leaves Afrin before talks with Ankara begin, when he also said that a second prerequisite was “that Turkey ends its threats against northeastern Syria.”
Editing by John J. Catherine
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UN Iraq envoy calls for unified control of Sinjar for Yezidis to return home Wladimir van Wilgenburg Wladimir van Wilgenburg | 14 hours ago Share share UN Iraq envoy calls for unified control of Sinjar for Yezidis to return home Displaced members of the Yezidi (Ezidi) religious minority outside the city of Sinjar (Shingal). (Photo: Archive)...
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English below

TEHRAN (FNA)- Kurdish fighters intensified their military operations against Turkish Army and its allied militants in Aleppo province, destroying their joint intelligence center, media reports said. The so-called Kurdish 'Afrin Liberation' militants destroyed a joint center of Turkey's MIT and National Liberation militants in the town of Izaz in Northwestern Aleppo, killing two intelligence officers, including one of their commanders and injuring seven others, the Kurdish-lan...guage Hawar News reported.
"The headquarters of 'Tajamo Ahrar al-Sharqiyeh' terrorist group was targeted by the Kurdish fighters, killing and injuring a number of them," battlefield sources in Afrin said.
Meantime, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that clashes have resumed between the Turkish Army and Kurdish forces in Mar'anaz axis near Izaz in Northern Aleppo.
The Afrin Liberation militants in a statement announced that they have intensified their operations against the Turkish Army and its allied militants in Northern Aleppo.
In a relevant development last week, the Kurdish-language media reported that the Turkish Army had strengthened its military positions in areas under its control in Afrin and set up another military base for Jeish al-Islam terrorists there.
The Kurdish-language Hawar News quoted local sources in Afrin as saying that the Ankara Army is presently setting up 3-meter walls in the surrounding areas of its command centers in the villages of Afrin region, specially in the villages bordering al-Shahba region.
The report pointed to an attempt by the Turkish Army to destroy people's houses, administrative buildings, schools and water reservoirs North of Jalbareh village in Shirva, and said that the occupying army intends to set a new military base in the same region.
Meantime, informed sources reported that the Turkish troops are establishing a command center and a camp for Jeish al-Islam terrorists near Kawa al-Haddad Square.
They also said that the Jeish al-Islam terrorists are meant to use the camp for training their militants.
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Syria's federal or death drums ½
Afrin - east of the Euphrates and Idlib, two poles of contradiction and conflict politically and militarily, and an ideology, in terms of international evaluations, and not Turkish nor Kurdish evaluations, the most different areas of the difficulties faced, and in the probabilities at hand to address the issues, and the ideological structure of the forces for controlling them, between the terrorists extremist groups, who harbor of terrorism,...
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