ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Attacks on northeast Syria (Rojava) and the local Kurdish authority amount to an assault on Kurds everywhere, Kurdistan Region Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani warned on Tuesday, maintaining that Kurds do not seek protection through resilience and unity, not appeals.
“We Kurds do not beg the world and the influential powers to protect us,” Talabani said. “Rather, we remind them that this is not the first time they have backed the opponents of the Kurds.”
“The Kurds remained, and the Ba'ath went away with a world of disasters and crimes,” he added, in reference to past international support for the brutal Ba’ath regimes in Iraq and Syria.
Talabani made the comments amid a lightning advance by the Syrian Arab Army and affiliated armed groups to seize control of northeastern Syria, where Kurds have ruled autonomously for over a decade. Syria announced a four-day ceasefire on Tuesday to negotiate a handover of Kurdish-held territory to Damascus.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show captured Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters and civilians being insulted, beaten, and executed by armed men believed to be affiliated with Damascus. The SDF released footage of several of its fighters being decapitated in Rojava.
Talabani said the conflict extends beyond Syria’s borders.
“This is not just an attack on the [Kurdish] Autonomous Administration and Rojava, but an attack on the honor and dignity of Kurds in the whole world,” he said.
Talabani described the SDF as “a force and a people who, for more than 12 years, fought the war on terror instead of the whole world.”
The SDF was the sole Syrian partner in a US-led military coalition that defeated the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria in 2019. Kurdish Peshmerga forces played a central role in defeating ISIS with the US and Iraqi militaries in neighboring Iraq.
He praised Kurdish solidarity across borders, calling it “our only guarantee of existence and survival,” and pledged continued support for Rojava.
“We see it as our duty to make every effort to help our brave sons and daughters in Rojava,” Talabani said, “to stop this difficult and complicated situation, to normalize the situation and to guarantee their rights within the permanent constitution.”
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