Eva Savelesberg

CHAPTER 10
THE PKK AS THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS?

KURDS, ISLAMISTS AND THE BATTLE
FOR KOBANI
Eva Savelesberg
On August 3, 2014, the Islamic State (IS) captured the mainly

Yazidi-populated Jebel Sinjar. The Kurdish peshmerga forces
supposed to protect the region fled over the border to Syria, thus
leaving the population unaided. Approximately 50,000 Yazidis
did not manage to reach Syria or nearby Dohuk, but fled into the
Sinjar mountains. Besieged by the IS and without sufficient food
and water, their situation became more desperate every day. At
this point the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) entered the scene.
According to the current narrative, it was the Peoples Defense
Units (YPG), the militia of the Democratic Union Party (PYD),
the Syrian branch of the PKK, who managed to clear a corridor
through IS-held territory stretching all the way from the Syrian
border to the mountains. 1
However, this version of what happened is more than ques-
tionable. When the IS captured Sinjar on August 3, Nawaf ‘Isa
‘Ali, the Sinjar correspondent for the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) station Kurdistan TV, was among the last persons
still able to leave the region. ‘Ali accuses military and political
1
See, for example, Al Monitor, September 1, 2014, “PKK forces im-
press in fight against Islamic State”,
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/pkk-kurdish-fight-
islamic-state.html. The same version is presented in Christoph Reuter,
Die schwarze Macht: Der Islamische Staat’ und die Strategen des
Terrors (Munich: Spiegel Buchverlag, 2015), pp. 210–229.
222
The PKK as the Lesser of Two Evils? 223
leaders in Sinjar of corruption and serious failures in the fight

against the IS. At the same time, he contradicts the claim that the
PKK “saved” the Yazidis in Sinjar:
The PYD and PKK did not have a single fighter in

Sinjar prior to the invasion. It first became an actor in
this conflict when Mas‘ud Barzani denied the pesh-
merga, who had fled to Syria, entry into Iraqi Kurdi-
stan via Fish Khabur and gave them the order to re-
turn to Sinjar. The eight hundred to one thousand
fighters who had fled to Syrian Kurdistan with Sar-
bast Bapiri, Sa‘id Kesay, and Shawkat Kaniki then
returned to Sinjar, accompanied by approximately
two hundred PYD fighters. There was one single road
into the mountains, one single way to access Sinjar
that was not controlled by the IS. Together with the
PYD, the peshmerga then formed a corridor for the
refugees in the mountains. There were hardly any
military conflicts with the IS here. Nor were any PYD
fighters or peshmerga killed. The PYD did not fight
in Sinjar and it did not save the Yazidis; that is noth-
ing more than propaganda on behalf of the PYD. The
only thing that it did was to build this corridor with
the peshmerga and allow the refugees to enter Syrian
Kurdistan and later return to Iraqi Kurdistan. 2
The YPG, PYD and PKK nevertheless greatly profited from

the narrative that they saved the Yazidi, at least with regard to
their reputation. However, it was the Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga,
and explicitly not the YPG or the PKK, who were armed by
Germany and other Western powers in the aftermath of the at-
tack on Jabal Sinjar. Moreover, the US Air Force for the first
time intervened militarily in the fight against the IS.
Only six weeks later, on September 19, the IS again at-
tacked Kurdish populated territory; its fighters marched towards
2
Nawaf ‘Isa ‘Ali, former correspondent for Kurdistan TV in Sinjar (in
Kurdish, Şingal) in Iraq, September 30, 2014, “The PYD did not fight
in Sinjar and it did not save the Yazidis; that is nothing more than
propaganda”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/syria_article.php?aid=3232&z=en&cure=24
0.
224 KURDISH ISSUES
the city of ‘Ayn al-‘Arab (Kobanî), located on the Syrian-

Turkish border. Within 24 hours, approximately 370 villages
were captured. The YPG did not even try to defend the villages
but instead retreated. However, they did warn the villagers to
leave their homes. Ten thousand refugees fled to neighboring
Turkey. As a result, there were no massacres, no public behead-
ings and no mass kidnappings of women and girls by the IS as in
the case of the Yazidis.
Initially, it was the YPG fighting the IS, but when IS forces
reached the city of Kobanî, they were replaced by PKK fighters
from Turkey. Around October 10, about 400 PKK fighters
crossed into Syria from Turkey, and others followed. According
to activists from the region, only about 150 YPG fighters were
left at that time. Again different from the situation in Sinjar, the
PKK suffered heavy losses. According to PKK sources, 400 of
their fighters were killed. However, independent activists esti-
mate their number to be around 1,500. 3 The PKK was supported
by air strikes of the US Air Force; moreover, the Kurdistan Re-
gional Government (KRG) sent peshmerga to Kobanî: on Octo-
ber 30, a first contingent of 150 fighters had arrived there. 4 Ad-
ditionally, weapons of Iraqi-Kurdish origin were brought in by
the US Air Force. 5 However, there was no direct armament of
PKK fighters taking place. 6 Between January 27 and February
10, 2015, the IS was expelled from all of the territories in the
vicinity of Kobanî that were under PYD control prior to their IS
capture. 7

3
Interview with an activist from Kobanî, June 22, 2015.
4
KurdWatch, May 1, 2015, “‘Ayn al-‘Arab: Peshmerga withdraw
completely”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/index.php?aid=3357&z=en&cure=1029.
5
KurdWatch, October 28, 2014, “‘Ayn al-‘Arab: US Air Force pro-
vides YPG with weapons from Iraqi Kurdistan”,
6
A member of the U.S.-Emabassy in Berlin explained in a confidential
conversation, that the PYD and PKK were not the favorite partner of
the US and that it was planned to strictly limit cooperation with them
soley to supporting air strikes.
7
KurdWatch, February 18, 2015, “‘Ayn al-‘Arab: IS expelled from
additional territories”,
The two episodes described above had major repercussions

for the PKK: Within six months, from August 2014 to January
2015, YPG and PKK transformed, in the perception of large
parts of the Western media and its audience, from terrorists to
freedom fighters. In numerous articles and talk shows, their
brave fight for freedom and democracy was praised. 8 The ad-
ministration of the predominately Kurdish areas Jazirah, ‘Afrin
and Kobanî by the PYD was presented—and not just by leftist
parties and journals—as a democratic alternative to chaos, war,
and corruption in the other parts of Syria. In these discussions,
the fact that in the last few years, the PYD and YPG have estab-
lished an authoritarian regime in the Kurdish parts of Syria, one
that independent activists frequently describe as more repressive
than the former Ba‘th-regime, was mainly ignored. What is this
regime like? 9
“Democratic Self-governing”
The PYD was founded in 2003. PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s
expulsion from Syria in October 1998 marked the end of an era
in which the PKK could operate inside and out of Syria virtually
undisturbed. By establishing a Syrian sister party, the PKK con-
tinued its work of trying to connect its sympathizers and mem-
bers living in Syria to the party. 10 The re-founding of the party
was also intended to avoid state repression. However, this
proved to be unsuccessful. Until the beginning of the protests in
2011, the PYD was the party with the most prisoners; its mem-

8
See, for example, “Ausharren im belagerten Kobane”, Deutsche
Welle, December 22, 2014, http://www.dw.com/de/ausharren-im-
belagerten-kobane/a-18146085.
9
As the author is the web-journalist for the website KurdWatch
(www.kurdwatch.org), the following is mainly based on research pub-
lished on this website.
10
All high-ranking PYD officials are in fact PKK cadres, often PKK
commanders, delegated from Turkey to Syria. Decisions are not taken
by any of the political bodies created by the PYD, but by its mother
party, the PKK.
226 KURDISH ISSUES
bers were, as a rule, sentenced to longer prison terms than mem-

bers of other parties and subjected to systematic torture. 11
When the dissident demonstrations began in spring of 2011,
however, the situation changed in favor of the PYD; the party
increasingly gained strength, most notably due to its cooperation
with the Syrian regime. Especially at the beginning of the protest
wave, the PYD suppressed dissident demonstrations in the Kurd-
ish regions so that the Syrian army did not have to open a “sec-
ond front” and could stay focused on other areas. Up until that
point the Kurds were considered the strongest oppositional
group. In return for its role in suppressing dissent, the Ba‘th re-
gime gradually transferred control of the predominantly Kurdish
regions to the PYD starting in mid-2012.
As of mid-2015, the PYD controls most of the cities in the
Jazirah. The regime is only strong in Qamishli, where control is
shared. In Hasakah, a change is currently underway. Given the
advancement of the Islamic State (IS), the regime has turned
over control to the PYD not only the Kurdish districts, but also
some Arab districts. Although, the PYD controls the cities of the
‘Afrin canton, the villages in the surrounding area are partly un-
der Islamist control. ‘Ayn al-‘Arab (Kobanî) and its surround-
ings were re-conquered by the PKK from the IS in early 2015. 12

11
For more information on the history of the PYD and other Kurdish
political parties see for example Eva Savelsberg 2014, “The Syrian-
Kurdish Movements: Obstacles Rather than Driving Forces of Democ-
ratization”, in David Romano & Mehmet Gurses (eds.), Conflict, De-
mocratization and the Kurds in the Middle East: Turkey, Iran, Iraq,
and Syria (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2014), pp. 85–107; Eva
Savelsberg and Jordi Tejel, “The Syrian Kurds in ‘Transition to Some-
where’”, in Mohammed M.A. Ahmed and Michael Gunter (eds.), The
Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds (Costa Mesa,
CA: Mazda Publishers, 2013), pp. 189–217; Jordi Tejel, “Toward a
Generational Rupture within the Kurdish Movement in Syria?”, in Ofra
Bengio (ed.), Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented
Homeland (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), pp. 215–229; and
Michael M. Gunter, Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and
War (London: Hurst & Company, 2014).
12
However, it is at least questionable if the PYD will be able to defend
the city. As recently as June 25, 2015, IS fighters advanced into the city
of Kobanî. They entrenched themselves in several buildings and fired
indiscriminately at civilians. In addition, IS fighters killed civilians in
In June 2015, the YPG successfully captured Tall Abyad, a bor-

der city located between Kobanî and ad-Darbasiya, which con-
nects the canton of Jazirah with the canton of Kobanî. 13
The PYD propaganda describes its government as “democ-
ratic self-governing” or collective self-administration from be-
low based on the organization of the people in civil institutions.
However, the “social contract” referred to when asked to explain
this concept has never been officially published by the PYD. 14
Comparably nebulous is the question of who participated in the
establishment of a local administration in the Jazirah, ‘Afrin and
‘Ayn al-‘Arab on November 12, 2013. 15 No comprehensive list
of signatories has ever been printed. Moreover, the known par-
ticipants are either affiliated with the PYD, like the PYD’s
women’s organization Yekîtîya Star, or are entirely unknown,
such as the Liberal Kurdish Union, the Kurdish Democratic
Peace Party in Syria or the Communist Kurdistanian Party. The
Kurdish National Council as an umbrella organization was not
involved, nor was any of the senior political parties such as the
Kurdish Union Party in Syria (Yekîtî) or the Kurdistan Democ-
ratic Party-Syria (KDP-S). This lack of transparency and ac-
countability is intentional. Thus it is no surprise that the PYD
alone promoted the declaration of a local administration, fol-
lowed by the appointment of three governments in the “cantons”
of Jazirah, Kobanî and ‘Afrin on January 21, 27 and 29, 2014.
In March 2015, local elections were held under PYD rule in
the Jazirah canton for the first time. Apart from the PYD, only
PYD-affiliated parties participated in the process; none of the
at least seven surrounding villages including Kan‘ftar, Manaz Tirmik,

Darbazin, Kharus, and Barkh Batan. At least 25 people were murdered
in Barkh Batan, located 25 kilometers south of Kobanî. The Democ-
ratic Union Party (PYD) reported a total of 201 deaths.
13
KurdWatch, June 21, 2015, “Tall Abyad: YPG captures Tall Abyad
and surrounding villages”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/?aid=3462&z=en&cure=1029.
14
On July 18, 2013, the website Rihab News published the draft of a
constitution formulated by the PYD, the “Social Contract for Western
Kurdistan”. However, the document was soon removed.
15
KurdWatch, November 25, 2014, “Al-Qamishli: PYD forms local
administration”,
228 KURDISH ISSUES
parties from the Kurdish National Council (KNC) ran for office.
On March 16, the Supreme Election Commission announced the
results at a press conference in ‘Amudah. More than 100,000
eligible voters reportedly cast a ballot, but turnout was given at
only fifty per cent. However, in the absence of independent elec-
tion observers, even the voter turnout figures could not be veri-
fied. Election workers and election observers were employees of
the PYD-appointed transitional administration. According to in-
formation from the Supreme Election Commission, national and
international election observers also participated in counting the
votes. However, all that is known is that 16 election observers
from the Kurdish regions of Turkey took part. Additionally,
there was no reliable information about the current population
numbers for Hasakah province.
Before the civil war, the population was estimated at 1.4
million residents. Since then at least 250,000 Kurds have left the
province for Turkey, Iraqi-Kurdistan, and Europe. These people
had no opportunity to take part in the elections. The elections
also had other serious shortcomings. Armed fighters were pre-
sent in some polling places; the PYD flag was hung in others.
Illiterate people who wanted to participate in the elections were
not allowed to bring their own assistant into the voting booth;
instead they were assigned an election worker. On the day of the
election, several candidates were still campaigning in front of the
polling places. 16 Thus, the election procedure did not meet
minimum democratic standards. Rather it was solely organized
to convince the PYD’s own clientele—as well as the outside
world—that they had adhered to democratic rules.
The PYD’s record of human rights violations

In addition to its cooperation with the Syrian government, the
PYD’s strength comes from the fact that it is the only armed
Kurdish party in Syria. All other Syrian-Kurdish parties are not
armed or, as is the case with the PYD/PKK, they do not have
well-trained, experienced cadres at their disposal. Since 2011,
the PYD has violently thwarted all attempts by Kurdish parties to

16
KurdWatch, March 16, 2015, “‘Amudah: Results of local elections
are announced”,
establish their own fighting units. 17 Thus, these parties have no

means to even defend their own members against PYD persecu-
tion.
The number of short-time arrests or kidnappings, i.e. a day
to a couple of weeks, in order to intimidate activists and repre-
sentatives of other political parties has significantly risen since
the PYD gained control over the region. 18 At the beginning of
the revolution, the primary victims of shorter or longer-term
unlawful detentions were members of the two Kurdish Freedom
Parties in Syria (Azadî), the Kurdish Union Party in Syria
(Yekîtî), ‘Abdulhakim Bashar’s Kurdish Democratic Party in
Syria (el-Partî), as well as fighters for the Free Syrian Army
(FSA). Today the PYD is focused on members of the Kurdish
Democratic Party – Syria (PDK-S), which was founded in April
2014. The sister party of the Democratic Party Kurdistan/Iraq is
a merger of four Kurdish parties, including el-Partî and both
Azadîs. Apart from politicians, journalists and independent ac-
tivists have also frequently become victims of the PYD. 19
When the PYD did take an official position on cases of
unlawful detention, it claimed that those in question were not
arrested for political reasons, but because they were criminals
such as drug dealers or pimps. Another pretext cited for unlawful
detentions was “cooperation with the enemy”, especially the
FSA, but not, for example, the Syrian regime. Thus, political
persecution is being justified as a legitimate form of crime pre-
vention or as a defense against external enemies.
17
See, for example, KurdWatch September 2013, “What does the Syr-
ian-Kurdish opposition want? Politics between Erbil, Sulaymaniyah,
Damascus and Qandil”, pp. 20–23,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/pdf/KurdWatch_A009_en_Parteien2.pdf.
18
For the period since August 2011, KurdWatch has the names and
cases of about 250 victims. Approximately 200 additional cases are all
but certain, but since sufficient personal data on these cases is missing,
they are not mentioned on the KurdWatch website.
19
See, for example, KurdWatch, April 27, 2014, “Al-Qamishli: PYD
abducts journalists to Iraqi-Kurdistan”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/index.php?aid=3077&z=en&cure=1016;
and “KurdWatch, April 30, 2014, “Ad-Darbasiyah: Journalist kid-
napped by PYD”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/index.php?aid=3081&z=en&cure=1016”.
230 KURDISH ISSUES
Moreover, under the PYD’s rule, at least 32 people have

been killed. These cases can essentially be classified into four
categories, although there is some overlap between each of them.
The first category is politically motivated murders carried out on
behalf of the regime. Examples include the murder of Misch‘al
at-Tammu, the speaker of the Kurdish Future Movement in Syria
in autumn 2011 as well as the murder of Nasruddin Birhik, a
member of the central committee of el-Partî, in February, 2012.20
The second category is murders that (also) serve the PYD’s own
ends. A noteworthy example is the January 2012 murder of the
Badro brothers, which occurred because the family dared to turn
its back on the PKK to support the opposition. 21 The third cate-
gory is killings of demonstrators during or following demonstra-
tions. The most well known example is the YPG’s attack on a
demonstration that voiced criticism of the PYD on June 27, 2013
in ‘Amudah. 22 Finally, the last category includes all those who
failed to show the PYD, YPG, or the Asayiş “respect” as was
expected. This includes, for example, the case of von Haiawi
‘Abdu Hammu and his son, who were fatally shot because they
ignored a YPG checkpoint on their way to their home village of
Tall Ghazal near ‘Ayn al-‘Arab. A passer-by who tried to come
to their aid was also killed. 23 Another case that falls into this
category is Hanan Khalil Hamdush, who was tortured to death in

20
KurdWatch interview, May 18, 2014, Mahmud an Nasir, former
Syrian intelligence officer from Ra‘s al-‘Ayn, “The Syrian regime’s
crisis center gave the PKK instructions to murder Kurdish politicians,
and the PKK carried them out”,
0; and KurdWatch, February 24, 2012, “Aleppo: Nasruddin Birhik suc-
cumbs to his injuries following assassination attempt”,
21
KurdWatch, January 13, 2012, “Al-Qamishli: PYD members kill
three people and severely injure one”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/?z=en&aid=2390.
22
KurdWatch, July 3, 2013, “‘Amudah: Situation escalates following
YPG attack on demonstration”,
23
KurdWatch, June 29, 2013, “‘Ayn al-‘Arab: YPG fatally shoots three
people at checkpoint”,
early May 2014 because he had insulted employees of the Asayiş

and Abdullah Öcalan in a traffic-related accident. 24
In most cases the PYD has denied responsibility for the
murders, and independent investigations have not taken place. A
cross-party delegation, which was to investigate the events in
‘Amudah, was denied access to the city. The murder of the
Badro brothers represents an exception. On PYD and PKK-
affiliated websites, the murder was justified on the grounds that
the Badros were “traitors”. In the case of Hanan Khalil Ham-
dush, the Asayiş claimed that he had committed suicide.
In the first half of 2014, there was an increased prevalence
of cases in which the PYD’s security service detained people,
mainly members of other Kurdish parties, because they had not
applied for authorization for demonstrations or other similar
events from the PYD-appointed administration. Even indoor
meetings to celebrate occasions such as International Women’s
Day or the commemoration of the attack on Halabja 25 years ago
have to be approved by the Asaiyş. 25 Whereas the supporters of
the parties of the Kurdish National Council and independent ac-
tivists view the PYD-government as illegitimate and therefore
refuse to apply for authorizations, the PYD makes such demands
in an attempt to establish itself as a legitimate state authority
with powers of control.
The situation is similar with respect to the closing of the of-
fices of competing parties. These closures occur on the grounds
that the organizations in question did not apply for authorization
in accordance with the prevailing law for political parties. Yet,
the representatives of the parties in question do not recognize the
law passed by the PYD. Additionally, between April and June of
2014, almost the entire central committee of the PDK-S was ab-
ducted from Syria and taken to Iraqi-Kurdistan. The PYD claims
not to have initiated the expulsions, but those people who alleg-
24
KurdWatch, May 18, 2014, “‘Afrin: Prisoner in PYD custody tor-
tured to death”,
25
KurdWatch, March 16 2014, “Ad-Darbasiyah: PYD prohibits event
for International Women’s Day”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/?aid=3049&z=en&cure=1016; and Kurd-
Watch, March 25, 2014, “Al-Qamishli: PYD prohibits el-Partî event”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/?aid=3055&z=en&cure=1016.
232 KURDISH ISSUES
edly forced the party members out of the country were not inves-
tigated nor were those who were expelled allowed to return to
Syria from Iraq, even though they are all Syrian citizens. 26
A final major human-rights violation committed by PYD
and YPG is the forced recruitment of adult as well as child sol-
diers: On July 13, 2014, the legislative council for the canton of
Jazirah enacted a law on compulsory military service entitled the
“Duty of Self-Defense.” 27 Since then, numerous young men have
fled the country in order to avoid forced recruitment. However,
not only adults are recruited into the YPG against their will, but
also there has been an increase in the recruitment of minors as
young as 12. Sometimes the recruitment was forced; other times
the children and adolescents joined the Peoples Defense Units
voluntarily, but against the expressed will of their parents. While
adult conscripts are trained in Syria, the PYD typically brings
minors to Iraqi-Kurdistan.
In late November 2014, for example, 13-year-old Nurman
Khalifa (born on January 1, 2001) was kidnapped by PYD mem-
bers and brought to a PKK military camp in Iraqi-Kurdistan,
where she was to be trained as a guerrilla fighter. On December
24, she and another under-aged girl were able to escape. In an
interview with KurdWatch, she reported that hundreds of minors
are being held in PKK camps in the mountains of Iraqi-
Kurdistan. The children and adolescents do not receive sufficient
food and must perform hard labor. Escape attempts are routine.
If they are discovered, they are punished with a transfer to an-

26
See, for eample, KurdWatch, May 22, 2014, “Al-Hasakah: PYD ab-
ducts PDK-S politician to Iraqi-Kurdistan”,
http://www.kurdwatch.org/index.php?aid=3104&z=en&cure=1016;
and KurdWatch, April 27, 2014, “Al-Malikiyah: PYD arbitrarily denies
entry to Syrian-Kurdish politicians”,
27
On May 16, 2015, Dijla Muhammad, the deputy chairwoman of the
defense committee for the canton of ‘Afrin, stated that the canton’s
legislative council had introduced a law on compulsory military service
on May 7. On the basis of the law, young men in ‘Afrin would also
soon be compelled to perform military service. See ANHA Hawar
News Agency, May 16, 2015, “Self-defense law implemented also in
Efrîn”, http://en.hawarnews.com/self-defense-law-implemented-also-
in-efrin.
other camp, with arrest, torture, and in some cases death: “When
I came to the mountains, a girl had tried to escape seven times
already and the eighth time she was caught again. We were all
gathered together. There was a meeting that lasted the whole
night. She was put on a stage and they told her that a PKK bullet
was too good for her and she was shot and thrown into the
river.” 28
The recruitment of people under the age of 18 is not only a
violation of international law, it also contradicts the PYD’s own
law on compulsory military service passed by the legislative
council of Jazirah, which set the minimum age for recruitment at
18. Moreover, on December 14, 2013, the YPG’s general com-
mando issued an order that prohibited the recruitment of people
under the age of 18 and threatened anyone who violated this or-
der. 29 The large number of minors in PKK and YPG training
camps in Iraqi-Kurdistan make clear that these are not isolated
cases. Actions taken by the PYD to identify and demobilize a
total of 149 child soldiers—which allegedly occurred after a
deed of commitment to protect children in armed conflicts was
initiated by the non-governmental organization Geneva Call and
signed by representatives of the YPG, its women’s units (YPJ),
and the “Democratic Self-Administration in Rojava” on July 5,
2014, 30 —are at best a token gesture. At worst, they are a diver-
sionary tactic to allow the PYD to continue the strategic recruit-
ment of child soldiers. It is reasonable to argue that the YPG re-
lies on the use of child soldiers.
Thus, it is easier to recruit adolescents than adults, espe-
cially if they are told that their fight is “heroic”. For young
women and girls from conservative patriarchal families in par-

28
KurdWatch, May 23, 2015, "They told her: ‘This PKK bullet is too
good for you!’ and shot her in the head”,
0.
29
Circular issued by the General Command of YPG, December 14,
2013,
http://theirwords.org/media/transfer/doc/ypg_order_en-
b21b6149ccdeeb42de6c53ea83275b05.pdf.
30
Geneva Call, July 7, 2014, “Syria: Kurdish armed forces demobilize
149 child soldiers”, http://www.genevacall.org/syria-kurdish-armed-
forces-demobilize-149-child-soldiers.

234 KURDISH ISSUES
ticular, entry into the Women’s Defense Units also promises

freedoms that they would not otherwise have. Children and ado-
lescents are not as mentally and intellectually capable of resist-
ing the PYD’s ideological program as adults would be. It is
known that young people who grow up in the PYD and PKK
camps often later become especially staunch cadres. They also
have a particularly difficult time reintegrating into society, be-
cause they often have not completed their education. Such re-
cruitment of minors is a common tool that militias use to groom
loyal cadres.
Conclusion
The PYD either portrays its systematic attacks on potential po-
litical opponents and those who think differently as acts of le-
gitimate state power or it denies any responsibility for them. The
public perception of this policy is problematic given that the
longer the PYD, YPG, and Asayiş continue to exercise state
power, the greater the chance that the fundamental illegitimacy
of their actions is overlooked. The persecution of those who
think differently is not a regrettable exception. These are not the
mistakes of an inexperienced regime and its administration, but
instead represent the systematic intimidation or even elimination
of potential political opponents. However, especially against the
backdrop of the violent crimes perpetrated by the IS in Syria and
in Iraq, there is an increasing willingness to accept and arm the
PYD, at least as a strategic partner in the fight against the
Islamists. While an increasing number of people understand that
only fighting the IS and not the regime cannot be successful, the
knowledge that the PKK and YPG are also not suitable partners
for the west is still not widely understood. With regard to the
victory in June 2015 of the YPG and PKK against the IS in Tall
Abyad, U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby refused
to be drawn into the issue of the United States arming Kurds in-
side Syria. However, he said that the cooperation with the PYD
was strictly through air strikes. 31 What can be foreseen is that the

31
See MESOP, June 20, 2015, “John Kirby’s Dilemma: US: We Need
More Partners Than Kurds in Syria . . .”, http://www.mesop.de/mesop-
john-kirbys-dilemma-us-we-need-more-partners-than-kurds-in-syria-
YPG and PKK will, if they are armed, almost certainly not only
use these new weapons against the IS, but also against their
Kurdish critics.
need-for-additional-partners-on-the-ground-state-department-
spokesperson/.

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CHAPTER 10

THE PKK AS THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS?

On August 3, 2014, the Islamic State (IS) captured the mainly

leaders in Sinjar of corruption and serious failures in the fight

The PYD and PKK did not have a single fighter in

The YPG, PYD and PKK nevertheless greatly profited from

the city of ‘Ayn al-‘Arab (Kobanî), located on the Syrian-

The two episodes described above had major repercussions

bers were, as a rule, sentenced to longer prison terms than mem-

In June 2015, the YPG successfully captured Tall Abyad, a bor-

at least seven surrounding villages including Kan‘ftar, Manaz Tirmik,

The PYD’s record of human rights violations

establish their own fighting units. 17 Thus, these parties have no

Moreover, under the PYD’s rule, at least 32 people have

early May 2014 because he had insulted employees of the Asayiş

ticular, entry into the Women’s Defense Units also promises

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