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Girke Lege Becomes Sixth Kurdish City Liberated in Syria

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image Kurdish youth carrying the Kurdish flag on the streets of Amude. Photo: Shabab Kurd.

 

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -- Syrian forces have peacefully withdrawn from the Kurdish town of Girke Lege in Hasakah province, leaving all their buildings empty and under the control of Kurdish forces.

Ismail Sharaf, central committee member of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan-Syria, told Rudaw that the Kurdish People’s Protection Units are now in control of Girke Lege after the Syrian army and police left the area.

“Girke Lege is peaceful and secure. The situation is stable and the Kurdish political parties are based at their newly established centres trying to help the local people with whatever they need,” Sharaf said.

Last week, as the revolution intensified and moved into the capital Damascus, several Kurdish cities were liberated without major clashes, including Kobane, Amude and Efrin. Girke Lege is the sixth Kurdish town to break away from Assad’s regime.

“What is happening in Kurdistan cannot be compared to what is happening right now in the middle and south of Syria. I think this is because the Kurdish nation in Syria is carrying out a civil struggle. We are doing our best to not use any weapons, and so are peacefully liberating our towns and cities,” Sharaf said.  

Girke Lege is a small town with a population of 16,000. It is an important place geographically and strategically as it is situated between the Turkish border and the town of Derek in the Rumelan region. The town name was Arabized to “Ma’abad,” but the majority of the population is Kurdish.

Sharaf said regime forces have retreated to parts of the Rumelan region where Syria’s major oil refineries are situated.

All government institutions and local public departments are now in the hands of the People’s Protection Committees belonging to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the most influential Kurdish political party in Syria.

Sharaf told Rudaw that the PYD and the Kurdish National Council (KNC) are currently in talks over how to run the public departments so that services do not stop and everything returns to normal in the town.

On June 11, Syrian Kurdish factions signed the Erbil Agreement which designates joint leadership between the KNC and PYD’s Council of Syrian Kurdistan over freed cities.

The KNC and PYD have two different versions of the Kurdish flag, which may lead to conflict in the coming days. 

The KNC is a non-military organization and, because most of the areas are controlled by the PYD, they have their own version of the flag on the liberated buildings they are now controlling, according to Sharaf.

He added, “In order to avoid conflict, we have lowered our version of the Kurdish flag in many places where we are in control.” 

Subscribe to comments feed Comments (1 posted):

HUSEYIN on 25/07/2012 23:07:50
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I hope Kurds get autonomy in syria
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