Rudaw reports: The Islamic State has multiple heads and bodies and the ones attacking the Kurds have Turkish origins, Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party co-head Salih Muslim has said in an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper published Saturday.

Muslim said that they cannot ascertain the involvement of the Turkish government, but there was a possibility certain groups that were influential in Turkey in the past and the present might be involved.

Regarding assistance from the Turkish government in allowing Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga to cross Turkish territories and fight against ISIS in Kobani, Muslim argued that the Turkish gesture was due to pressure from the United States.

Muslim also talked about the relationship between the Kurds and the Syrian regime. “Ocalan knew that the Syrian regime was using the Kurds for its own agendas against Turkey and Iraq, but the relationship was useful for the Kurds,” he said referring to imprisoned Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan.

“The People’s Protection Units (YPG) can become part of the Syrian army,” said Muslim, only if the army changes its ideologies and practices. “There is no going back to the past,” he said.

The 93rd and 17th Brigades of the Syrian army deliberately abandoned weapons to be seized by ISIS in Tedmur and other areas in Syria, and the same thing happened in the Iraqi city of Mosul, claimed Muslim. [Continue reading…]