Today’s Kobani conference in European Parliament was organised by Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left and Kurdistan National Congress (KNK). It was well attended and covered by Kurdish and European media. Much of the talks were focused on the significance of Rojava/Syrian Kurdistan revolution for the region and the Turkish policy towards Rojava and the Kurds more generally. Adem Uzun of KNK provided some background and context to the Kurdish question and Turkeys Kurdish policy. The MEPs Gabriele Zimmer and Bodil Ceballos, from Die Linke and the Swedish Greens, respectively, stressed the need to pressurise Turkey to change course, to remove PKK from EU’s list of terrorist organisations, and to recognise PYD-led government in the three cantons in the predominantly Kurdish regions of Syria as the legitimate authority. I talked about Turkey’s Syria policy, its systematic attempt at destroying the Kurdish democratic autonomy experience in Syria, and its insincerity in peace talks with PKK. I enumerated concrete steps that Turkey, US, EU and UN can take to help Kobani, and Rojava experience more generally. All speakers spoke of the need to talk *to* - not just *about* - the Kurds, in Rojava and other parts, and to provide military and humanitarian aid to the cantons, ideally through the establishment of a humanitarian corridor supervised by UN. Salih Muslim was the last speaker. He gave some background information on the ‘democratic autonomy’ project in Rojava and the latest developments on the ground in Kobani. He emphasised the need to listen to the Kurds and reviving the economic life of the region, which has been under an undeclared economic embargo for the past couple of years. He ended his talk on a reassuring note stressing that Kobani will not fall! Kamran Matin
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 10:36:54 +0000
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