Speaker 1: A media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome. What could happen here?
Speaker 1: It is a second episode about Kurdistan. I am very
Speaker 1: lucky to be joined today by Vladimir van Wilgeenberg, who
Speaker 1: many of you will know is a journalist covering Kurdistan,
Speaker 1: has done excellent work for a lot of publications.
Speaker 2: So welcome to the show of Vladimir. Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for invitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks thanks for being willing to join us so
Speaker 1: late at night your time. Let's start off by discussing
Speaker 1: an event you attended or the event you were in
Speaker 1: proximity too. By the sounds of it, people will have
Speaker 1: seen this online, I'm sure, but it was the disarmament
Speaker 1: of a number of PKK garrillas that took place in
Speaker 1: the mountains of southern Kurdistan over the weekend of the
Speaker 1: tenth to twelfth of July.
Speaker 3: So yeah, a few days ago, well, I tried to
Speaker 3: attend the ceremony from for the biggilas that were disarming.
Speaker 3: Basically what happened is that they burned their weapons, although
Speaker 3: technically it's not really possible to burn a weapon because
Speaker 3: there were this colossicals. Basically that they were put they
Speaker 3: put in a fire and it was in like actually
Speaker 3: a tourist cave near doc Kan, so this is not
Speaker 3: It was actually very different because I also have been
Speaker 3: in during the peace process. I've also was in a
Speaker 3: press conference of the pik a K in two thousand
Speaker 3: fourteen or fifteen or some of that around that time,
Speaker 3: and that was very different because it was basically in
Speaker 3: the area that the PIKAK is activated. It was in
Speaker 3: the area under their control, but this was under a
Speaker 3: different Kurdish parties control. It's called the patriarch Union of Kurdistan.
Speaker 3: So in Iraqi Kurdistan, you have two main parties, the
Speaker 3: Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and you have the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: So this cave where they did the ceremony, which is
Speaker 3: actually a tourist cave, it's in PK controlled area, so
Speaker 3: the ceremony was sort of protected by PUK security forces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why.
Speaker 3: Also the PUK media they got a lot of special access,
Speaker 3: and also there was the Turkish government media was there
Speaker 3: and also PIKK media was there and a lot of
Speaker 3: other Kurdish TV channels.
Speaker 2: So it was a very interesting day.
Speaker 3: Although I was not able to pass the checkpoint towards
Speaker 3: the ceremony because at the last moment, actually a few
Speaker 3: days before the ceremony, they.
Speaker 2: Changed the access.
Speaker 3: Supposedly it will be a very open ceremony, but then
Speaker 3: they said because of security reasons that they had to
Speaker 3: restrict the ceremony and there would be some TV screens
Speaker 3: and stuff. And then I couldn't find the TV screens.
Speaker 3: But that's another discussion. But I also don't still understand
Speaker 3: what the security risk was. Although a day before there
Speaker 3: was a drone strike on a Kurdish Peshmarga base, but
Speaker 3: it was like quite far away from that. It was
Speaker 3: one hour away from the ceremony location.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's an Iranian durned to jake great like
Speaker 1: a Shahi drone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there have been like no group has these attacks.
Speaker 3: But in the aftermath of the Twelve Day War, there
Speaker 3: have been a lot of drawn strikes in the Kurdistan
Speaker 3: region in various areas, including this morning on American Oil
Speaker 3: Company's facility in the Hawk Province and the day before
Speaker 3: that also on another field near Airbill.
Speaker 2: So it has been quite tense yeh.
Speaker 3: Which also probably affected the ceremony, although it's not really
Speaker 3: related to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's different.
Speaker 3: So yeah, basically what was interesting. So they have this
Speaker 3: peace process between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish state.
Speaker 2: It's all started with a.
Speaker 3: Call by a Turkish ultra nationalist leader which actually in
Speaker 3: the past actually called for executing of the Logeland. The
Speaker 3: leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party has been in prison
Speaker 3: since the nineties. He was actually surprisingly starting this peace process.
Speaker 3: He was saying like we should have him talked in
Speaker 3: the parliament and call for disbanding the pik a K.
Speaker 3: So he never came to the parliament, but he released
Speaker 3: messages from prison, and before the ceremony he released also
Speaker 3: a video message where he again focused on disarming basically,
Speaker 3: and then the ceremony basically came where you have thirty fighters,
Speaker 3: fifteen women, fifteen men, because the PIKK is all about
Speaker 3: woman equality, so that's why they did it fifty to
Speaker 3: fifty and they put their weapons in this fire. So
Speaker 3: I think this also sacrifice a point of renewal because
Speaker 3: Kurts as a tradition, they have this Kurdish New Year
Speaker 3: every year on twenty one March where people jump over fires.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of fireworks and the Kurdish and Atros
Speaker 3: is basically the start of a new beginning. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons they chose these fires
Speaker 3: is because of this idea of a new beginning, and
Speaker 3: also the fact that when the PICAK started, there were
Speaker 3: people that sort of the creators of the PIKK. There
Speaker 3: are actually some of them they burned themselves in prison
Speaker 3: in the in the Turkish prison. Yeah, so it's also
Speaker 3: sort of related to that.
Speaker 2: This sort of interlinks with a fire. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you also saw that they carefully put the weapons
Speaker 3: in the fire, they didn't just throw them. So it's
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that they have completely given up on weapons,
Speaker 3: because they're still waiting on counter steps from the Turkish government.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like there has been fighting between p KK or
Speaker 1: hPG or how you want to say it, like hPG
Speaker 1: being like the technically the armed wing. There's been fighting
Speaker 1: in southern Kurdistan, like the in Iraqi kig Kerdistan Autonomous
Speaker 1: Region of Iraq since the call for peace right, like,
Speaker 1: there has been ongoing fighting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's not really I would not say
Speaker 3: that it's like like actively fighting to take territory, yes,
Speaker 3: which was happening before. So it's more that it's some
Speaker 3: like Turkish armies shooting artillery on the PIKK, and there
Speaker 3: was also one incident that the Pikk actually responded by drones.
Speaker 3: But so far this didn't reach much in the Turkish
Speaker 3: or the Kurdish media. I mean they were like, some
Speaker 3: of this artillery shelling costs some fires, so villagers in
Speaker 3: the areas it's a very hot summer now, they were
Speaker 3: trying to put out the fires.
Speaker 2: But it was not like the active, active fighting that.
Speaker 3: You had before, okay, And you know, since there was
Speaker 3: also a previous peace process. I mean, there have been
Speaker 3: several peace processes since history between the Pikk and Turkey,
Speaker 3: but they never had a positive result. And last one
Speaker 3: before this song was twenty fifteen. And after that peace
Speaker 3: process broke down when two policemen were shot. It's still
Speaker 3: unclear who shot those policemen. The fighting erupted again and
Speaker 3: since then there have been heavy fighting, first in the
Speaker 3: Kurdish majority areas of Turkey until basically Turkey defeated Kurdish
Speaker 3: armed insurgents in the Kurdish cities in Turkey, and since
Speaker 3: then actually the fighting has moved more to Iraqi, Kurdistan,
Speaker 3: where the PIKK has also a historical presence.
Speaker 2: Is the nineties.
Speaker 3: But what you now have is that we have this
Speaker 3: new piece process started by this call of bats Shelley
Speaker 3: and the big AKA leader O Johan has said the
Speaker 3: time for armed struggle is over. We don't want to
Speaker 3: have a Kurdish date. So basically what now is happening
Speaker 3: is that the Kurdish Pikak and the Kurdish political counterpart
Speaker 3: in Turkey, they're basically waiting for steps by Turkey now
Speaker 3: to give them basically trust to continue this process.
Speaker 2: And there was also a speech by.
Speaker 3: The Turkish president Erdoland where he was also saying that
Speaker 3: it's the end. We don't need anymore. We need to talk.
Speaker 3: It's not a time for weapons anymore. We spend trillions
Speaker 3: of dollars on the war against the Pikak. We had
Speaker 3: this a lot of martyrs and we sacrificed a lot,
Speaker 3: and it's now the time to stop the war and
Speaker 3: to do talking. And he said they're gonna work with
Speaker 3: the Kurdish Party and this ultra Turkish nationalist party the
Speaker 3: MHP in the parliament and to also set up a
Speaker 3: commission to basically work on constitutional changes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a break for adverts here and then
Speaker 1: we'll come back. All right, we are back. I guess
Speaker 1: we should talk briefly about like the nature of this,
Speaker 1: this call for piece. You explained very well that this
Speaker 1: is probably a higher chance of success than that has
Speaker 1: ever been right, Like, we have the explicit buying of Ojulan,
Speaker 1: who hasn't been seen on video since the nineties, so
Speaker 1: like to have him making a video statement, it's quite significant.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's been seen on video, but like not
Speaker 1: not like making a speech, right, and then that we
Speaker 1: have like this this endorsement in the Turkish Parliament. Like,
Speaker 1: I think there's been a lot of speculation about what
Speaker 1: led to this, and some of it's not particularly helpful.
Speaker 1: But you know, you're very well educated on these matters.
Speaker 1: What do you think this means for not just the
Speaker 1: PKK but the k c K. I guess, like the
Speaker 1: Kurdish Freedom movement, that the different movements throughout kurtis down
Speaker 1: they are inspired by the political thought of Aujilan.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, until now, it's difficult to say what
Speaker 3: exactly is going to happen because the BIKK said they're
Speaker 3: going to go there will disarm. But there's other groups
Speaker 3: which are linked to the big K in Iran Iran
Speaker 3: and in Syria and also for instance Sinjar, those groups
Speaker 3: said they were not Some of them have said publicly
Speaker 3: that we're not part of this process or they walk
Speaker 3: on the process, and others they didn't really say much
Speaker 3: to this group, haven't said really a lot. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: it's also going to be interesting what will happen with
Speaker 3: those groups, with the Iranian Kurdish group and also with
Speaker 3: the Serian democratic forces in Syria that have a different
Speaker 3: situation also after the fall of so they have these
Speaker 3: stocks with Omascus. And actually one of the reasons that
Speaker 3: the first peace process broke down was because that in
Speaker 3: actually at that time also that Turkey was a little
Speaker 3: bit afraid of this alliance between the Kurds and the
Speaker 3: Americans at the time against ISIS that was then rising
Speaker 3: up in Syria and attacked the Kurdish town of Coban
Speaker 3: in Syria, which created an alliance between the Kurds and
Speaker 3: the US against the ISIS terrorists militant jihadi group.
Speaker 2: But now the situation actually is interesting.
Speaker 3: So at that time the Curds were empowered in Syria,
Speaker 3: but now you can see there's a completely different situation
Speaker 3: now the opposite way. So now you have the rebels
Speaker 3: that took over Damascus and they are now the government
Speaker 3: run by Jiulani his previous name, who's now called himself
Speaker 3: antal Shada his real name. So they now have a
Speaker 3: new Islamist controlled government and Damascus, and there's a lot
Speaker 3: of tension between the curts in Syria and Theamascus. So
Speaker 3: this could also risk basically this peace process with Turkey
Speaker 3: because the SDF they have also ideological ins with the
Speaker 3: pik Ak, so it's also interesting how this will work out.
Speaker 3: So in the past it was also always like the
Speaker 3: fighting between Turkey and the Pikak could threaten the SDF Assyria,
Speaker 3: but sort of the other way around that fighting between
Speaker 3: possible fighting in the future between Damascus and the Curtain Syria,
Speaker 3: it could threaten the peace process in Turkey and Erdolan.
Speaker 3: He made this very big speech not a very long
Speaker 3: time ago where he mentioned that Turkey doesn't only want
Speaker 3: piece for the curse in Turkey and for Alla Whites
Speaker 3: also a religious minority in Turkey, but he was also
Speaker 3: talking that he wants piece for the curse in Syria
Speaker 3: and also in Iraq, that they should also live like
Speaker 3: a prosperous life in Syria, and that they have good
Speaker 3: relations with the Sieran government. So I think that's also
Speaker 3: a very interesting point that you don't see in many articles,
Speaker 3: that there's like this very big interlinkage between all these
Speaker 3: different tissues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think Turkey has maintained that the SDF
Speaker 1: is the peak KK, right, just with like a different badge,
Speaker 1: which is not the case. They share a lot of politics,
Speaker 1: but they're distinct. Turkey also has like extensive proxy forces
Speaker 1: in Syria. Right, there have been fighting with the SDF
Speaker 1: since I guess late well, I mean for years, but
Speaker 1: like in an expanded sense, since since the beginning of
Speaker 1: the fall of the Asad regime that we saw like
Speaker 1: probably seven or eight months ago.
Speaker 2: Now, it's a very complex situation.
Speaker 1: It's also as we record this today on the fifteenth,
Speaker 1: Syria is a very diverse country and add to all
Speaker 1: the groups you mentioned, there is currently fighting between the
Speaker 1: government and Dru's militias. Right, can you explain a little
Speaker 1: bit about the situation there and the relevance of that.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the Druze they are a religious community
Speaker 3: that are not same as the Sunni Muslims, and they
Speaker 3: control their own area on the border the town called
Speaker 3: Sweda and the villages around it, and also they have
Speaker 3: some areas in Damascus where they have their presence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Drews basically during the time where.
Speaker 3: The Assad regime still was in power, they didn't really
Speaker 3: like fight very heavily against the Assad regime in the beginning,
Speaker 3: but they didn't allow the Assad regime to recruit military
Speaker 3: recruit people in their area and they sort of tried
Speaker 3: to keep the regime out of their area. So during
Speaker 3: the civil war they were sort of semi autonomous, but
Speaker 3: not officially.
Speaker 2: And actually in the last years before.
Speaker 3: The fall Offasad, they were like a big protests in
Speaker 3: the Drews areas in support of the Syrian Revolution and
Speaker 3: against the Assaut regimes. So they were like very big
Speaker 3: protests in the Druze areas against the Assaut regime. So
Speaker 3: when the Assad regime was militarily weakening and the rebels
Speaker 3: from the other side of Syria they were attacking the
Speaker 3: Assad regime, the Drews they also joined the fight and
Speaker 3: they marched together with the Southern rebels. They marched on
Speaker 3: to Moscus, and they were actually the first one that
Speaker 3: entered the Mouscus, not not the ahmtal Shada or the Hts.
Speaker 3: Actually the first ones that entered the Moscus was the
Speaker 3: Southern rebels and the Drews.
Speaker 2: But but there's this thing.
Speaker 3: Is that the Moscus wants to have this this new
Speaker 3: regime or the new government in the Muscus. They want
Speaker 3: to have this very centralized system, so they don't want
Speaker 3: the Drews to run their own armed groups and they
Speaker 3: have their own sort of local autonomy, so they have
Speaker 3: They have been fighting before between the Drews and the
Speaker 3: new authorities in Syria in areas near Theamascus, but there
Speaker 3: was like a ceasefire and the fighting stopped. But recently
Speaker 3: there's also like historical tensions between these Arab Bedouin tribes
Speaker 3: and the Drews in the area.
Speaker 2: So these areas are quite mixed. So there's actually this
Speaker 2: this recent conflict.
Speaker 3: They started when Biduan tribes they they robbed like a
Speaker 3: merchant who was a Druce and then after that they
Speaker 3: were like mutual kidnapping like tensions between both. And then
Speaker 3: basically although the Moscus said they were neutral, the Mascus
Speaker 3: started to support these Bedouin groups against the Drus and
Speaker 3: started marching on on Sueda, which is the the Drew
Speaker 3: stronghold on the border.
Speaker 2: And so actually there have been like.
Speaker 3: A few days, not even a few days, but have
Speaker 3: been like a short period of fighting now. And actually Damascus,
Speaker 3: they they entered this druze town of Sueda and they
Speaker 3: actually said, okay, we control the town now, and now
Speaker 3: we're going to withdraw the Serian army and then the
Speaker 3: internal security force is going to control the city. That
Speaker 3: very shortly after Israel started bombing heavily the cern armed
Speaker 3: forces of the new Sirn government and then the Drews
Speaker 3: armed groups they sort of pushed back and they pushed
Speaker 3: out this internal security force out of the city. And
Speaker 3: now the Drews are, according to many reports, back in
Speaker 3: control of the city of Zuida. And now you see
Speaker 3: that just like what happened with the Alla Whites when
Speaker 3: there was this Asad regime remnants that they had uprising
Speaker 3: against the new authorities. And then they were like these rebels.
Speaker 3: They were mobilized with mosks all over Syria and they
Speaker 3: went to the coast areas and they defeated those Asad
Speaker 3: regime remnants, but they killed also a lot of civilians
Speaker 3: some reports over fifteen hundred people. So what you now
Speaker 3: see is that the Damascus is against mobilizing those people with.
Speaker 2: Mosques to march on Zueda.
Speaker 3: But the difference is with the other whites is that
Speaker 3: Israel also has Drews, so there's also pressure on the
Speaker 3: Israeli government to support the drew So it's not only
Speaker 3: because of their strategic interests, it's also because there are
Speaker 3: Drews living in Israel itself that also have joined the
Speaker 3: Israeli army, so they're also pushing Israel for taking action.
Speaker 3: So you saw that today, like Israel, they took a
Speaker 3: lot of they carried out a lot of air strikes,
Speaker 3: and the Drews that are basically back in control of
Speaker 3: most of the Sueda city, not of the whole area.
Speaker 3: But the fight is not all real yet. And then
Speaker 3: you also have different rustractions. Some of them they have
Speaker 3: better relations with Damascus, the majority of them don't. So
Speaker 3: now we're going to see if there's going to be fighting,
Speaker 3: if the fighting is going to increase again. We've seen
Speaker 3: our reports as of that the HDS or the the
Speaker 3: Moscus government forces that are using drones strikes by themselves
Speaker 3: on RUS forces, so they're using basically the drones that
Speaker 3: they used to overthrow the us UT regime.
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, that's the situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the world stopped looking at Syria. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess the world stop looking at Syria a while ago,
Speaker 1: like really, after the defeat of the Territorial Calipate. It's
Speaker 1: been much harder to sell stories in big newspapers in
Speaker 1: the United States. But yeah, it's by no means, like
Speaker 1: the fighting is not over and it leaves their SDF
Speaker 1: Western Kurdistan branch of this Kurdish movement right, like in
Speaker 1: as you said, a fairly perilous condition. Right, the Damascus
Speaker 1: wants to centralize. I think they want to They don't
Speaker 1: want to have independent they don't want to have like
Speaker 1: federated autonomy. The United States seems to be, at least
Speaker 1: the United States envoy to Damascus seems to be making
Speaker 1: statements that suggests that, like the only way forward is
Speaker 1: through centralization. On one hand, we have the PKK alene
Speaker 1: Gan arm. The other hand, we have the SDF in
Speaker 1: its difficult position. Where does this leave, like the Kurdish
Speaker 1: Freedom Movement. I think this has been the thing that
Speaker 1: a lot of people all over the world have looked
Speaker 1: up to. Right, people have especially rich Ava as this
Speaker 1: example that people could build something, a place where freedom
Speaker 1: could exist in the middle of this terrible war in Syria.
Speaker 2: Do you think the movement's like in danger now?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean you have this new government in Syria. Actually,
Speaker 3: and in initially to Trump administration was quite reluctant to
Speaker 3: have relations with the new authorities in Damascus because they
Speaker 3: were I mean, Joolani used to be on a Amachada,
Speaker 3: used to be on a terrorist sanctioned list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a bounty for him at one point,
Speaker 1: it wasn't there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I think there was like a very intensive
Speaker 3: love being by some Gulf states and Turkey to basically
Speaker 3: remove the sanctions on not a shot at Jolani, but
Speaker 3: also remove sanctions on Syria that the economic sanctions that
Speaker 3: were actually were on the Asaturgy. So I think the
Speaker 3: Trump administration changed their position, and also a new ambassador
Speaker 3: for Syria and Turkey was appointed, so he was not
Speaker 3: only the bassador Turkey but also for Syria, and he's
Speaker 3: basically echoing a lot of the points of the new
Speaker 3: authorities in Damascus that they was talking about one state,
Speaker 3: one army, one days, one days, and the SEF should
Speaker 3: be integrated and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: So there was there.
Speaker 3: Was also recently there were talks between Theamascus and the
Speaker 3: STF because in March they reached an agreement with Western
Speaker 3: support and they were trying to basically make them or
Speaker 3: finalized agreement in recently a few days ago, they had
Speaker 3: these talks in Damascus and the French were there, and
Speaker 3: the Brits were there, and Americans were there. But this
Speaker 3: agreement was not implemented, it didn't lead to anything, so
Speaker 3: it was not really it didn't really work very well
Speaker 3: because the Moscus is insisting on this centralized state. And
Speaker 3: I was just listening to Kurdish sharing Kurdish official and
Speaker 3: she was also saying like, we don't want to separate
Speaker 3: from Syria, but we want to have some form of
Speaker 3: local councils and a decentralized Syria and not like a
Speaker 3: centralized Syria. And she was also talking about what happened
Speaker 3: to the Jews, that it's not a very good example
Speaker 3: for the future of Syria. Yeah, so I think definitely
Speaker 3: what you're saying that there is a sort of a
Speaker 3: threat because in the past he was very supportive of
Speaker 3: the SDF in the fight against Isis, although they didn't
Speaker 3: support so much their political project, but they supported them
Speaker 3: because they fought Isis. And also they were keeping out
Speaker 3: Iranian backed malicious from areas like the resor. But now
Speaker 3: you don't have me run anymore. In Syria, they were
Speaker 3: completely kicked out after the fall of the Acet regime.
Speaker 3: All these militias they have been disbanded or hiding or
Speaker 3: some of them actually now being used by the Muscus.
Speaker 2: Against the Druze.
Speaker 3: So doubt that argument is not there anymore that you okay,
Speaker 3: we have the SDF, they keep out the I ran
Speaker 3: from the oil fields. Yeah, you could still argue you
Speaker 3: have still have the fight against ICES, I mean ICES.
Speaker 2: Is still fred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the Curts don't have that same leverage anymore
Speaker 3: as is in the past that they said, okay, we're
Speaker 3: the main ones fighting ISS, we keep out the run
Speaker 3: from these areas because now you have THEMSCUS. The Moscus said,
Speaker 3: why the kurt should do that, Like, let's us take
Speaker 3: over those prisons and the camps where you have these
Speaker 3: thousands of Isis families and ICES prisoners, and we don't
Speaker 3: need the Curds to run the ICES. Well, we can
Speaker 3: do that for you. So I think that's now, Like
Speaker 3: the big issue is that the US seems to be
Speaker 3: more supporting the Moscus at these diplomatically than the SDF,
Speaker 3: although military speaking, the support is still going on for
Speaker 3: the SDF until twenty twenty six in the last Entergon
Speaker 3: budget which was not accepted yet they're still like millions
Speaker 3: of support for the SDF to to maintain the prisons
Speaker 3: and this.
Speaker 2: Kind of stuff. So I think it's it's it's a.
Speaker 1: Difficult situation, yeah, that these prisons like our whole and others, right,
Speaker 1: like they there, I guess kind of the only leverage
Speaker 1: the FDF has with the United States where they along
Speaker 1: with the continuing and somewhat increasing ISIS attacks, but that's
Speaker 1: still much less of a threat to the US than
Speaker 1: it was ten years ago, say, right, Like, it's it's
Speaker 1: much less of a significant thing. So, like what is
Speaker 1: the status of those prisons that currently they're still guided
Speaker 1: by the SDF, right, but the people aren't familiar. Can
Speaker 1: you just explain what those prisons consist of and like
Speaker 1: who's in there and who's guiding them?
Speaker 3: Well, so IS has credit this jihadi state between twenty
Speaker 3: fourteen and twenty nineteen, but then the Kurdish led SDF.
Speaker 3: They basically took most of these areas under ISIS control.
Speaker 3: They defeated basically ISIS with the support of the US,
Speaker 3: so they lost the territory. And the last battle basically
Speaker 3: was for a small town called Bajus and the Rezor.
Speaker 3: So you had all these ISIS families there, and also
Speaker 3: there were like several ISIS foreign members that were captured,
Speaker 3: so you have the wives of ISIS fighters and you
Speaker 3: also have IIS fighters themselves that were captured during these battles.
Speaker 3: So all these people they were brought to camps. So
Speaker 3: I was there in Syria many times. For instance, during
Speaker 3: the battle for Raka, which was used to be the
Speaker 3: capital of the ISIS Caliphate, they were like bringing the
Speaker 3: ISIS families and women to a camp in I know Lisa.
Speaker 3: But after that they moved most of those people to
Speaker 3: actually move almost all of them to the Roche camp
Speaker 3: and all hold camp in northern Syria in the Hassaka province.
Speaker 2: And also that includes foreigners.
Speaker 3: You can imagine people from Uzbek Kistan, from Uihus from China,
Speaker 3: people from Turkey, French people, European people, so it's full
Speaker 3: of a lot of different people, and then the majority
Speaker 3: are actually Iraqis and Syrians, so the sea they have
Speaker 3: this foul they a majority. Like a lot of people
Speaker 3: in those camps, they have been repatriated or they have
Speaker 3: to return to their homes. So I think those camps
Speaker 3: like a whole camp, like the prison. It's not a prison,
Speaker 3: it's the camp. I think like the number of people
Speaker 3: that are basically decreased almost fifty percent, but there are
Speaker 3: still a lot of people inside. But the prisons you
Speaker 3: have still all these Isis spiders that were in prison
Speaker 3: during the war, and a lot of them are foreigners,
Speaker 3: including Dutch another country. You know, some countries they have
Speaker 3: returned there, they have returned their people there. So we
Speaker 3: have some people, you know, America they took back most
Speaker 3: of the families and the fighters and they prosecute them
Speaker 3: in the US. But you also have countries that didn't
Speaker 3: bring back the fighters, for instance, only brought back the woman.
Speaker 3: So that's the situation that all those people are still there.
Speaker 3: And it's actually what you mentioned that it's like one
Speaker 3: of the big reasons for support for the SDF, and
Speaker 3: it's also one of the reasons that the SDF is
Speaker 3: getting millions to keep those prisons in good shape because
Speaker 3: they have been also attims by isis to free those
Speaker 3: prisoners from those prisons.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, in successful attempts in twenty twenty, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: I think it was when they had the last like
Speaker 1: major prison escape, which, yeah, it's a bad thing for
Speaker 1: our world if if all those all those people get out,
Speaker 1: and like you say, lots of European nations, I think
Speaker 1: it's something that I wish Americans had paid more attention to,
Speaker 1: because I think that European nations have done the United
Speaker 1: Kingdom being a paramount example, is like rendered some of
Speaker 1: those people stateless, right that they've removed in this case,
Speaker 1: Shmima Bagoom is probably the most well known example. Right,
Speaker 1: they've removed her British passport and now she doesn't have
Speaker 1: a state. She's stateless. It's something that the US has
Speaker 1: recently done to people living in the United States, and
Speaker 1: like it does feel something as if you know that
Speaker 1: the president has been established and now it's being carried out,
Speaker 1: and it's obviously deeply concerning to see it happening here
Speaker 1: after like it happened there that wish people had opposed
Speaker 1: it when it did.
Speaker 3: Well I mean the US, in the US itself in
Speaker 3: Syria was very a big advocate of bringing the people out, Yes,
Speaker 3: it was, Yeah, because it will make it easier for.
Speaker 2: Them to withdraw.
Speaker 3: So they were actually pushing those countries that didn't want
Speaker 3: to bring back there are nationals to basically bring them back,
Speaker 3: like Western countries, the UK and others. Yeah, but some
Speaker 3: of these countries were actually forced by court orders or others.
Speaker 3: But a lot of these counties were actually quite reluctant
Speaker 3: to bring them back because they're afraid of like security
Speaker 3: risk and stuff, or that they will be released quite
Speaker 3: quickly and then they would again like be active and
Speaker 3: jihadist activity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so US was very so.
Speaker 3: I remember that the US was even offering like members
Speaker 3: of this Coalition against ISIS which was created in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: Like she said, if you cannot bring them yourself, I
Speaker 3: mean we can, our military can help you to bring
Speaker 3: those people out. If you think that you it's it's
Speaker 3: difficult for you to go to Syria and pick those
Speaker 3: nationals up from your accounts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, been pretty unsuccessful, like in a lot of
Speaker 1: well in some European cases they have, but still, yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of them utterly refusing to do it. I wonder
Speaker 1: then as we finish up here, right, like we spoke
Speaker 1: about this PKK disarmament, obviously it's a symbolic disarmament, right
Speaker 1: there is still I don't quite know how big the
Speaker 1: hPG is, but it's much bigger than thirty people. And
Speaker 1: then the weapons they laid down were like a very
Speaker 1: small percentage of their weapons. Were they just burning like kalashnikov?
Speaker 1: So did they burn like larger weapons too.
Speaker 3: No, it was just their personal collagicals basically. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it was also like more symbol like symbolic ceremony,
Speaker 3: like we are willing to give up. But the thing
Speaker 3: is that also it's still not clear what happened to
Speaker 3: those thirty people.
Speaker 2: Are they going to go back to Turkey, That's what
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask, Yeah, are.
Speaker 3: They going to stay in Iraqi Curdistan and find a
Speaker 3: job there? Because you have people like that in Iraqi
Speaker 3: Kurdistan that used to be with the pigger k and
Speaker 3: that now they work in I don't know, in media
Speaker 3: or construction sector or entertainment sector. You have people like that,
Speaker 3: But there's not much clarity on that. But I think
Speaker 3: also that's because they're waiting on Turkey to make possible
Speaker 3: constitutional steps, you know, to see what Turkey is going
Speaker 3: to do, because for instance, Turkey could offer an amnesty
Speaker 3: or the kind of things, then those people could return.
Speaker 3: And also some of them were saying like now it's
Speaker 3: the end of weapons, but we still want to be
Speaker 3: involved in.
Speaker 2: Politics, right through the political party.
Speaker 3: So it's also possible that those people want to go
Speaker 3: back to Turkey and basically take part in Kurdish politics
Speaker 3: or Turkish politics to be more corrected in Turkey. So
Speaker 3: I think it's a little bit too early to say
Speaker 3: what happened with those people, because I remember also if
Speaker 3: I very much corrected, they're also having peace process that
Speaker 3: basically people have given basically went to the border and
Speaker 3: give themselves up to Turkey. But that didn't happen now,
Speaker 3: so it's a bit different than in the past. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it seems that the Turkish government was very happy
Speaker 3: with the ceremony. They didn't complain about it.
Speaker 1: So okay, yeah, yeah, I wondered what happened. So those
Speaker 1: guerrillas or former guerrillas I suppose, who laid down their
Speaker 1: weapons at the end of the ceremony, they just kind
Speaker 1: of returned to the mountains or whatever.
Speaker 2: We don't know what will happen with them now.
Speaker 3: That's that's not clear to me because there are still
Speaker 3: some unanswered questions like what you mentioned now, like what
Speaker 3: those thirty people did, Yeah, what those people are going
Speaker 3: to do now?
Speaker 1: So right, there's a lot of people, and it's a
Speaker 1: lot of people, some of whom have spent decades as
Speaker 1: cadra of the revolution, right they have they haven't really
Speaker 1: known life outside of the revolution for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's so a bit difficult for them to
Speaker 3: return to civilian life because I mean because they probably
Speaker 3: joined when they're quite young, and I think I was
Speaker 3: also the profiles of the people of the thirty people
Speaker 3: will burn their weapons that a lot of them they
Speaker 3: joined in the nineties. Wow, so they have been in
Speaker 3: they have been in the mountains for a very long time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean some of them were young, but there were
Speaker 3: also older people among them. But definitely it's going to
Speaker 3: be a question what will happen with those people, although
Speaker 3: I mean they were also talked that some leadership of
Speaker 3: the armed Pikak movement might go to Europe and get
Speaker 3: asylum there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Instead of going back to Turkey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you have also a lot of courage
Speaker 3: the asport or organizations active there, so they could like
Speaker 3: basically embrace those people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're still listed as a foreign terrorist organization
Speaker 1: in most two Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, for instance, they probably would want to have
Speaker 3: something like what the Syrian president have now Ahmatoshada that
Speaker 3: he used to be listed as a sanctioned as a
Speaker 3: terrorist organization and then to have that removed. But I'm
Speaker 3: sure that that's not on the table anytime soon.
Speaker 2: But that happened with the HTS.
Speaker 3: But also it t happened for instance much Hulk and
Speaker 3: Uranian opposition group they also got delisted. So it's technically
Speaker 3: as possible. But I think we are like in a
Speaker 3: very early stage of the peace process. So that's why
Speaker 3: I think it's going to take time before we have
Speaker 3: more clarity and some of these answers that questions you ask, now,
Speaker 3: I mean most of the people that attended the ceremony
Speaker 3: didn't have an answer to that too, because there was
Speaker 3: not much clarity on that because it was just a ceremony.
Speaker 3: There was like a statement. Journals were not able to
Speaker 3: talk to most of the journalists. I mean there was
Speaker 3: like some statement in some Kurdish media, but in general,
Speaker 3: like they were not able to talk to those fighters,
Speaker 3: like now, what are you going to do? There was
Speaker 3: not like access to those thirty people that burned their weapons,
Speaker 3: so it was like sort of quite very much controlled ceremony.
Speaker 3: It was very difficult to report on it basically, which
Speaker 3: is very different from the previous peace process when it
Speaker 3: was much more open. But that time there was not
Speaker 3: like forty fighters giving up their weapons. They just had
Speaker 3: like sort of a press conference, is what we I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do? And that was very different than what happened now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it gets it's a big just to keep watching.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to watch it unfold. Like I was in
Speaker 1: Curdish Down a year and a half ago, and it
Speaker 1: is competed, it's seen. The situation is completely different likewise
Speaker 1: in the whole of Syria. So yeah, it's fascinating to watch.
Speaker 1: I'm sure if people want to know more about it.
Speaker 1: You're very good at reporting on this. You often post
Speaker 1: on Twitter about the situation, and you write for a
Speaker 1: number of outlets. So how can people follow your work?
Speaker 3: Well, the best place to follow my workers on Twitter
Speaker 3: on x X because I'm quite active there, but also
Speaker 3: I write for places like Middle East I something thanks
Speaker 3: like watching the Institute New a Liance Institute. I also
Speaker 3: write for a Kurdish magazine called Kurtist thank Chronicle, and
Speaker 3: also I pitched for other websites, so I'm quite active
Speaker 3: on different issues, but mostly focused on things related to Kurts,
Speaker 3: mostly stuff related to Iran, Turkey, Siria.
Speaker 2: It's inter Yeah, well, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate your insight. You're welcome, my friend. It
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.