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SDF Chief Says PKK Disarmament Call ‘Not Related to Us in Syria’

Commander of Syrian Kurdish-led forces Mazloum Abdi, attends an interview with Reuters in Hasakah, Syria December 19, 2024. (Reuters)
Commander of Syrian Kurdish-led forces Mazloum Abdi, attends an interview with Reuters in Hasakah, Syria December 19, 2024. (Reuters)
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SDF Chief Says PKK Disarmament Call ‘Not Related to Us in Syria’

Commander of Syrian Kurdish-led forces Mazloum Abdi, attends an interview with Reuters in Hasakah, Syria December 19, 2024. (Reuters)
Commander of Syrian Kurdish-led forces Mazloum Abdi, attends an interview with Reuters in Hasakah, Syria December 19, 2024. (Reuters)

The commander of the Kurdish-led forces that control northeastern Syria said that a call by the leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Türkiye for the PKK to dissolve did not apply to the group he leads.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi said he welcomed the historic call by Abdullah Ocalan for the PKK to drop its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state, which he said would have positive consequences in the region.

But Abdi said the long-imprisoned Ocalan's announcement on Thursday applied only to the PKK and was "not related to us in Syria".

Abdi's comment signaled Ocalan's announcement would have no immediate impact on the SDF despite the affiliation of Syria’s main Kurdish groups at the core of the SDF - the People's Protection Units (YPG) - to the PKK.

Türkiye says the YPG is indistinguishable from the PKK and has along with Turkish-aligned Syrian armed factions battled the group.

"If there is peace in Türkiye, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria," Abdi said.

Abdi's group established control over Kurdish areas of northern Syria after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and later became a major US partner in the fight against ISIS, further expanding the area under its control.

The SDF had little conflict with the Syrian army under then-President Bashar al-Assad. Now, the SDF faces calls by the new Damascus administration that ousted Assad in December to merge into newly-minted state security forces.

Türkiye is one of the new Syrian administration's main supporters.

Abdi has expressed a willingness for his forces to be part of the new defense ministry, but said they should join as a bloc rather than individuals, an idea rejected by the new government.

Neither the SDF nor the Kurdish-led administration was invited to a national dialogue conference convened in Damascus on Feb. 25. The Kurdish-led administration said the conference did not represent Syrians.

Abdi said Syrian Kurdish authorities would be organizing their own local dialogue on the future of the northeastern region. 

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Arab World

Israeli Military Changes Initial Account of Gaza Aid Worker Killings

Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israeli Military Changes Initial Account of Gaza Aid Worker Killings

Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025. (Reuters)

The Israeli military has provided new details that changed its initial account of the killing of 15 emergency workers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah last month but said investigators were still examining the evidence.

The 15 paramedics and emergency responders were shot dead on March 23 and buried in a shallow grave where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Another man is still missing.

The military initially said soldiers had opened fire on vehicles that approached their position "suspiciously" in the dark without lights or markings. It said they killed nine fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were travelling in Palestinian Red Crescent vehicles.

But video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the dead men and published by the Palestinian Red Crescent showed emergency workers in their uniforms and clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks, with their lights on, being fired on by soldiers.

The only known survivor of the incident, Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic Munther Abed, also said he had seen soldiers opening fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.

An Israeli military official said late on Saturday the investigators were examining the video and conclusions were expected to be presented to army commanders on Sunday.

Israeli media briefed by the military reported that troops had identified at least six of the 15 dead as members of the groups. However, the official declined to provide any evidence or detail of how the identifications were made, saying he did not want to share classified information.

"According to our information, there were terrorists there but this investigation is not over," he told reporters at the briefing late on Saturday.

The UN and the Palestinian Red Cross have demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of the paramedics.

Red Crescent officials have said 17 paramedics and emergency workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency service and the UN had been dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli air strikes.

Apart from Abed, who was detained for several hours before being released, another worker is still missing.

OPENED FIRE

The military official said initial findings from the investigation showed troops had opened fire on a vehicle at around 4 a.m., killing two members of the Hamas internal security forces, and taking another prisoner, who the official said had admitted under interrogation to being in Hamas.

As time passed, several vehicles passed along the road until, at around 6 a.m., he said troops received word from aerial surveillance that a suspicious group of vehicles was approaching.

"They feel this is another incident like what happened at 4 a.m. and they opened fire," the official said.

He said aerial surveillance footage showed the troops were at some distance when they opened fire, and he denied reports that the troops handcuffed at least some of the paramedics and shot them at close range.

"It's not from close. They opened fire from afar," he said. "There's no mistreatment of the people there."

He said the soldiers had approached the group they had shot, identifying at least some of them as fighters. However, he did not explain what evidence had prompted the assessment.

"And in their eyes, they had an encounter with terrorists, that is a successful encounter with terrorists."

He said the troops had informed the UN of the incident on the same day and initially covered the bodies with camouflage netting until they could be recovered. UN officials did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

"There was no incident where the Israeli army tried to cover up. On the contrary, they called the UN immediately."

Later, when the UN did not immediately come to take the bodies, the soldiers covered them with sand to stop animals from getting at them, the official said.

He said the vehicles were pushed out of the way by a heavy engineering vehicle to clear the road but he could not explain why the vehicles were crushed by the engineering vehicle and then buried.