Sweden confirms unchangeable stance towards northeast Syria
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – The ruling party in Sweden stressed that its country’s stance of northeast Syria would not change, said Shiyar Ali, representative of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in Sweden, Thursday.
This came two days after a meeting in Madrid on June 28 between leaders of Turkey, Finland and Sweden under the auspices of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced about a trilateral memorandum between Turkey, Sweden and Finland paving the way for Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership, the issue that Turkey had rejected since May under the pretext that they support the Kurdish Worker Party (PKK), the Democratic Union Part (PYD) and the People’s Protection Unites (YPG).
The PYD is a Kurdish political party established on Sept. 20, 2003 in northern Syria. It operates in Kurdish-majority areas in Syria, and Turkey claims it to be Syria’s branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The YPG is a mainly-Kurdish group affiliated with of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that was formed in 2011. It mainly operates in areas run by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava.
Ali told North Press in a phone call that meetings with political parties are ongoing. He also stressed that tomorrow there will be a meeting with a Swedish government delegation to discuss the recent agreement with Turkey.
Hassan Muhammad Ali, a member of the Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), said on Wednesday that the SDC has contacts with both Sweden and Finland to know about their real attitudes and about what is happening behind the scenes.
The AANES representative in Sweden cited an official in the Swedish ruling party as saying, “Erdogan sees the Swedish policy in Syria according to his whims.”
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defeated ISIS militarily.
He stressed that Erdogan had repeatedly tried to list the YPG and PYD on the list of terrorists, in addition to obtaining international approval to launch a military operation in Syria’s north, but he could not obtain a green light.
He added that his country is of humanitarian heritage and supports human rights all over the world that makes it impossible for Sweden to abandon its stances based on Erdogan’s demand.
He noted that Sweden supported not only the Kurds in Syria but also the Ukrainian people.