Kurdish Council denies media reports of its withdrawal from Syrian opposition coalition

Qamishli – North-Press Agency

On Saturday, the Kurdish National Council in Syria (an umbrella of some Syrian Kurdish political parties allied with the opposition Syrian National Coalition, abbreviated as ENKS) denied the authenticity of media reports that spoke about a U.S. request for the council to withdraw from the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (a Syrian opposition coalition headquartered in Turkey, also known as Syrian National Coalition or SNC) as part of the ongoing rapprochement talks between the parties and Kurdish political blocs in northeastern Syria.

On Saturday, Rudaw Media Network quoted unnamed sources who claimed that U.S. Envoy to Syria William Robak asked the Kurdish National Council to withdraw from the SNC and move the council’s headquarters from Turkey to Saudi Arabia or Egypt.

In two separate statements published on its official website, the Presidency of ENKS stated that it had not made any decision to withdraw from the coalition and that its representatives in the coalition are participating in meetings of the SNC’s General Authority.

ENKS and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) are engaged in talks aimed at unifying the Kurdish stance in Syria, after Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazloum Abdi launched a rapprochement initiative late last year.

In one of the statements, ENKS noted that the unity of the Kurdish stance will not be directed against any of the Syrian opposition parties, but will strengthen the role of the Kurds within the opposition and support the political process that is taking place in Geneva to find a solution to the Syrian crisis.

In the other statement, ENKS said that the dialogue between it and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) is still ongoing, but no final agreement has been reached yet, adding that the presidency of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq mediated the dialogue.