“A fight between Kurds is a disaster. We do not want that. We want peace,” Ezadin Khanjir told Rudaw’s Vivian Fatah on Thursday. He lives in Gira Sor village on the Syrian side of the border, near the Sihela crossing.
It is not clear exactly what happened. The Kurdistan Region Peshmerga said the People’s Protection Units (YPG) “attacked” their forces early Wednesday morning. The YPG, and its umbrella Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), denied the charge, and said the incident was the result of miscommunication.
“It was four in the morning when I was woken up by the sound of heavy weaponry that continued until around six,” said Abdullah Mohammed, who lives on the Rojava side. “Whether it is in Bashur [Kurdistan Region of Iraq] or Rojava, we do not want a fight between Kurds, because in the end our villages will be destroyed.”
Civilians on the Kurdistan Region side of the border have the same concerns.
“Clashes continued until 7:30 in the morning,” explained Faiz Gorgis, a resident of Fishkhabur, a town on the Kurdistan Region side of the border. After a lull, they “started fighting again until around 11 in the morning.”
“We do not want an intra-Kurdish war, because it only hurts the people of these lands and their properties,” Khalid Yaqub, mayor of Fishkhabur, told Rudaw’s Naif Ramadhan.
According to Deputy Minister of Peshmerga Sarbast Lazgeen, eight fighters from the YPG attempted to cross the border near Sihela and enter the Kurdistan Region. The Peshmerga were then attacked by a larger group, Lazgeen said in a press conference on Wednesday.
In a statement on Thursday, the SDF said that claims of an attack by the YPG were an exaggeration. “What happened was nothing more than a matter of poor coordination between the security services on both sides of the border, in contrast to what was promoted as an assault or attack on the Peshmerga forces and their positions.”
According to the SDF, a group of fighters had been coordinating the “ceasefire” of a group that had completed its mission in support of operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) and were returning to their headquarters when “they were besieged by the Peshmerga forces which led to short clashes between the two parties.”
“Then our channels of communication interfered to stop these clashes and coordinate to bring them back safely through joint efforts between the two coordination teams,” it added. It is not clear what ceasefire or group the SDF was referring to. Officials from the force were not immediately available for comment.
“The Syrian Democratic Forces have always respected the sovereignty of the region and its military forces on its territory,” the SDF statement added.
The YPG has also denied allegations that its forces launched an attack on the Peshmerga, which Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani condemned incident as a "reckless, unprovoked attack by.” He called on the Global Coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) to "ensure the YPG does not repeat this act of aggression."
The incident comes as tensions between Kurds are increasing, with the ruling party of the Kurdistan Region, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by the Barzani family, on one side and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on the other.
A Peshmerga was killed in clashes with the PKK in Amedi, Duhok province two days before clash on the border.
SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi slammed the Amedi incident as a “shameful” KDP attack on the PKK. Abdi fought for years with the PKK, which has its headquarters in the Kurdistan Region’s Qandil Mountains and has fought the Turkish state for decades, seeking greater rights for the country’s Kurdish minority.
"We want to deal with problems in a peaceful way through dialogue, but it seems Rojava cannot stray from Qandil's ideology, and this could be seen in Mazloum Abdi's tweet," Lazgeen said in response to the SDF commander’s statement, accusing him of supporting the PKK.
The YPG, although ideologically inspired by PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, denies any links to the PKK.
