Kurdish leader: Syrian Kurds oppose both Assad, PYD

Syrian Kurds are opposed to both the Bashar Assad regime and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terrorist group, and are "prepared to fight them," a Kurdish leader told Anadolu Agency on Friday. İbrahim Biro, the head of the Irbil-based Kurdish National Council, said that much of Syria's Kurdish population had been forced to flee the country in recent years due to ongoing violations committed by the PYD. "Many Kurds have fled due to the oppression meted out by this organization," he said. "The PYD is the biggest threat currently facing the Kurds of Rojava," he added, referring to northern Syria's Kurdish region. Currently controlled largely by the PYD, Rojava is comprised of Syria's Al-Hasakah, Al-Raqqa and Aleppo provinces. According to Biro, many Kurds of the region had fled to northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region or to Turkey, or had risked their lives trying to cross the Aegean Sea in hopes of finding refuge abroad. "The Kurds have been exhausted by both the Assad dictatorship and PYD dictatorship," he said.

"They struggled for years to end the tyranny of Assad," he added, noting that now they saw the PYD as "no better" than the regime in Damascus. He went on to describe the PYD as an "existential threat" to the region's Kurds. "The PYD wants to purge northern Syria of members of the Kurdish National Council and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria, along with others who don't think like they do," Biro asserted. The Kurdish leader also accused the PYD of abducting and torturing its political opponents and forcing Kurdish children to fight for its cause against their will.

"Our people oppose such heinous acts and will fight against them until the end," he concluded.