The way the West, particularly the United States, has abandoned the Kurdish people is “unacceptable,” the chairman of Conservative Friends of Kurdistan told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, adding that “there will be hell in Syria” if a resolution to the conflict cannot be reached.
Born in Iraq’s Kurdish region, Rebwar Hazhar now campaigns for the rights and recognition of Kurdistan and its people. He began campaigning with the Conservative Friends of Kurdistan in October, and his efforts have focused on building bridges between the UK Conservative Party and Kurdistan.
While the United Kingdom is “showing sympathy with Kurdistan,” it has been slow to take concrete steps, he said.
“There was a discussion in parliament over the last few days. They want us to be protected by [an] international alliance, but they haven’t done anything on the ground,” Hazhar shared.
“In the media and in parliament, they were showing their sympathy with Kurdistan, and they tried to help Kurdistan... In Downing Street, they were talking about Kurdistan as their closest ally in [the] Middle East, and [how] they’re the ones who defeated ISIS and how they should be treated better.”
Speaking to the Post from Jerusalem, Hazhar said that the Israeli response “was positive, especially in the United Nations, where they showed sympathy with Kurdistan.”
Hazhar, who was on a visit to Israel, said he was not part of any delegation. Rather, he was in the country simply because he had formed a large number of friendships within London’s Jewish community and saw Israel’s support of the Kurds as a sign that it was time to visit.
“I was always pro-Israeli, and I wanted to build up a bridge between Israel and Kurdistan. So I thought I should come here,” he said.
US steps back from support of SDF
While Washington has stepped back from the Syrian Democratic Forces, (SDF), which it previously backed, in a show of support for Ahmed al-Sharaa’s regime, Jerusalem has remained vocal in its opposition to Damascus’s treatment of minorities.
Sharaa is a formerly wanted terrorist who is also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani. His forces have been repeatedly accused of participating in massacres against the Druze, Alawites, Yazidis, and now the Kurds, under the guise of centralizing power.
Under the former Assad regime, the US-backed SDF enjoyed autonomy and was widely viewed as an ally, given both the community’s values and its fight against the Islamic State.
“Unfortunately, the US is telling Kurdish [people]: ‘We don’t need you anymore, we have Julani now.’ They (the regime) can do what the SDF was doing before,” Hazhar added, although he said he celebrated that not all senators had been quick to forget Sharaa’s history in Islamist terror groups.
Recounting an old Kurdish saying that the Kurds had no friends “but the mountain,” Hazhar said it was unsurprising that the world had seemingly abandoned them. While the US may now choose to back Sharaa, his efforts to counter the Islamist threat are “going to be very temporary.”
“One day, there will be a big conflict between the US and the Julani army because there’s nothing strategic there. There’s an ideology, and it will explode one day,” he warned, adding the accusation that the Sharaa regime is “pro-ISIS.”
As one of the largest ethnic groups without a state, Hazhar maintained confidence that his people would survive Damascus’ attempt to reduce the autonomy of Kurds to only “basic rights.”
“I do believe they (the SDF) are strong enough to defend the territory that they control now,” he said, adding that Damascus will fail to take hold of Kobane as long as Turkish forces stay at a distance.
While Hazhar believes in the strength of the SDF and finds reassurance in knowing that Kurds from the four major countries they inhabit have united to fight against the new threat, he shared that the humanitarian situation in Kobane was dire. “There’s no way for humanitarian aid to get there, and people, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have food... because it’s been surrounded by the Syrian army,” he said.
Damascus and the SDF have both repeatedly accused each other of breaking ceasefires, though now there is a pause in the conflict as Islamic State prisoners are being transferred to Iraq.
Hazhar said that while the SDF would “fight until the end of their life,” the group had attempted peaceful mediation with the regime and was met only with violence and the demand for all of Kurdistan.
Should the Sharaa regime succeed in its goal of occupying and controlling Kurdish land, Hazhar warned, “the Middle East will not be stabilized, not ever.”
“There will be hell in Syria,” he continued. “There will never be peaceful integration between the SDF and the Syrian regime. So this has to be definitely solved by the international community.”
The SDF, which has “sacrificed thousands of lives,” will not give up on its dream of Kurdish self-determination and statehood in exchange for “basic rights,” Hazhar said.
Having already formed a university, a military, a police force, and a government, bowing to Damascus would mean giving up everything the Kurds have built.