DUHOK, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Region expects armed members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to act “reasonably” and leave the Yezidi region of Shingal, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said in a meeting with Yezidi community leaders in Duhok on Monday.
Barzani told attendees of the meeting that his government wants to help with rebuilding the war-torn Yezidi areas, but claimed that the presence of the PKK fighters has limited this process.
“[T]he Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) wishes to start rebuilding Shingal as soon as possible, but the presence of the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the region has become a problem that made the Kurdistan Regional Government unable to work seriously enough in this regard,” Barzani said, according to a press release from his office.
ISIS captured Shingal on August 3, 2014, committing genocide against the Yezidi population. The town was liberated in November 2015 by a coalition of Kurdish forces, including KRG Peshmerga and PKK fighters. The PKK has maintained a presence in the area, refusing calls from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to leave.
Barzani repeated the official line that the KRG is thankful for the efforts of the PKK who helped with the protection of the Yezidi people in Shingal, adding that his government expects the PKK to leave these areas as the Peshmerga did after the liberation of Kobane in 2015.
The prime minister met with senior Yezidi figures in Duhok as part of his official visit to the province where hundreds of thousands of Yezidis have sought shelter from ISIS.
Tensions between the KRG Peshmerga and the Shingal Protections Units (YBS), an armed PKK-affiliated group based in Shingal, sharply escalated earlier this month in Khanasoor when the two sides entered an armed confrontation, resulting in several fatalities. Each side accused the other of initiating the clashes.
The leader of the Yezidi community Mir Tahsin Beg and the head of the Yezidi Spiritual Council Baba Shekh were among those who attended the meeting with Barzani.
Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, who met with President Masoud Barzani on Monday in Erbil, is said to have expressed American concern for the Kurdistan Region’s “peace and stability” with regard to the situation in Shingal, a statement from the Kurdish presidency said.
“[H]e also emphasized that peace and stability of Kurdistan is of interest to his country and regarding the situation in Shingal he stated that the US does not want any force other than the formal forces of the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad to be present in this area,” McGurk is quoted as saying in the meeting with the Kurdish president.
Hundreds of families fled the area where the armed clashes happened between the Roj Pesmerga, KRG-trained Peshmerga fighters who are originally from Syrian Kurdistan, and the YBS.
PM Barzani added that the KRG does not seek confrontation in any shape or form, “but does not accept either the forced imposition of any party through the use of force.”
Clashes between the Roj Peshmerg and the YBS erupted on March 3 and lasted a few hours after the KRG deployed 500 Peshmerga to Shingal, near the YBS-held areas.
