Turkey keeps mum on PYD discussions

ANKARA

Turkish troops stand guard on an APC on the Syria border in this photo. AFP photo

Turkish officials’ lips were tightly sealed yesterday regarding a visit to Turkey by Salih Muslim, the co-leader of the main Kurdish group in northern Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

A Turkish diplomat indicated that the meeting between Muslim and officials from the Foreign Ministry and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) would either be held later yesterday or it might extend to today.

The Turkish government has long expressed strong concerns about the imposition of a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.

Yet, in the past days, statements by Turkish officials were somehow fine-tuned, with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu feeling the need to say Turkey did not consider any group in Syria a threat, including the PYD.

Abdulhakim Bashar, the head of the Kurdish National Council (KNC) and the secretary-general of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria, and Mustafa Juma, the leader of the Kurdish Freedom Party in Syria, which is known as Azadi for short, arrived in Istanbul at the invitation of the Turkish government, Doğan news agency reported yesterday.