Posted on 11/04/2015 5:38:51 AM PST by winoneforthegipper
Complicated rivalries
It appears the Canadian army veteran and the other Westerners have fallen victim to a long-running feud between various Kurdish factions in the region.
The Syrian Kurdish militias of YPG are closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Barzani’s long-time rivals. The PKK has set up bases in the mountains of northern Iraq from which it has waged a decades-long campaign for an independent Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
Barzani accuses the PKK, which Canada considers a terrorist organization, and its Syrian cousins in YPG of undermining his efforts to create an internationally recognized Kurdish entity in northern Iraq by constantly provoking Turkey into military operations in Kurdish-populated areas of Turkey and Iraq. PKK and YPG in turn accuse Barzani of collaborating with the Turkish military and security forces and betraying the larger goal of creating a unified Kurdish homeland, spanning parts of northern Iraq, Syria and southeastern Turkey.
The feud between Barzani’s forces and the YPG means that the volunteers who want to fight ISIS in Syria have to be smuggled into the country covertly, but face detention when they return to Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at rcinet.ca ...
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