Syrian Kurdish leader: Moscow wants to work with us
A senior leader in the PYD is in Washington seeking more military support and expressing ambivalence about Russia’s latest intervention.
A Syrian Kurdish leader in Washington this week seeking greater US military support says that Russia has also offered to collaborate with Syrian Kurds in its current offensive against Muslim terrorist groups.
Ilham Ehmed, a senior member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Al-Monitor in a brief interview Oct. 8 that “Russia says it wants to work with us” to combat the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) and other extremist organizations.
The Barack Obama administration has accused Russia of focusing on more moderate Sunni Arab opponents of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rather than IS. According to the Kurds, the United States has also frustrated their desire to expand their area of control in Syria, known as Rojava.
Russia’s stunning intervention in Syria appears to have given the PYD a new card to play with the Obama administration.
