Syrian Kurds staged a protest in front of the PYD office in Berlin Saturday and demanded that the Syrian wing of the PKK be enlisted as a terrorist organization.
Siamend Hajo, the foreign affairs offical responsible for the Syrian Kurdish National Council (ENKS), said that the Syrians were there in order to protest the militant group and call for its enlistment as a terror group.
The ENKS is a coalition of 12 Syrian Kurdish parties known to oppose the PYD after the group became more dominant in northern Syria.
“PYD militants closed, set fire to our office. They tortured incarcerated people in Syria. PYD is a threat to regional stability. The US should also cut support to the PYD” Hajo said.
Turkey considers the PYD and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) to be terror threats, and uphold that these organizations are an offshoot of the PKK, which is officially recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S., the E.U. and Turkey. However, the EU and the U.S. do not recognize the PYD-YPG as a terrorist organization. Turkey strongly opposes the presence of any PKK-affiliated group south of its border, both in Iraq and Syria, saying it constitutes a national security threat to Turkey’s borders.
