Iraq’s top Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazlum Kobane held what has been widely billed as an historic meeting in Erbil on Wednesday, marking the first time the leaders met in person in a bid to forge unity after decades of division.
No formal statement was made by either side. However, Hoshyar Zebari, a senior official from Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP), called the talks a “significant achievement to strengthen Kurdish unity” as Syria’s new Islamist leaders plot the country’s future course.
Barzani and his son Masrour, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), had long been at odds with Kobane and the self-declared Syrian Kurdish government in northeast Syria due to their ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has been waging an armed campaign against Turkey, a key ally of the KRG, since 1984.
The PKK’s top commanders and the bulk of its forces are based in Iraqi Kurdistan, turning the area into a battleground with Turkey, whose repeated offensives and air campaigns have led to mass displacement of Kurdish civilians over the years.
Repeated attempts by the State Department to reconcile the sides bore no fruit, and at times, disrupted logistics for an estimated 2,000 US troops partnered with the SDF against the Islamic State in northeast Syria. A lot of the US-led coalition’s supplies are delivered overland from KDP-controlled territory. At the same time, the SDF’s links to the PKK have driven a deep wedge between NATO allies, Ankara and Washington.
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