Moscow: Syrian armed opposition, Islamists unite against local Kurds
MOSCOW. Aug 1 (Interfax) - The Free Syrian Army and the Islamists have united against the Syrian Kurds, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"Reportedly, Free Syrian Army units are working with the Islamists in their opposition to Kurds and involve members of local Arab tribes, including the Shamar tribes, in that confrontation," Deputy Director of the Ministry's Information and Press Department Maria Zakharova said in a commentary.
The commentary was published on the ministry website on Thursday after extremists had taken Kurdish hostages in Syria.
Intensified activity of Islamic radicals along the Syrian border with Turkey, which have a predominantly Kurdish population, target an ethnic and religious division within the country, the ministry said.
"This is also a form of revenge on Kurds who adhere to various political views and have abstained from involvement in the armed conflict in Syria, while maintaining law and order in the places of their permanent residence without external help," Zakharova said.
During the Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan, the extremists began the implementation of their plan to establish an Islamic emirate governed exclusively by Sharia laws on the territories under their control, the diplomat said.
"Kurds refused to succumb to the new rules and forced the militants to leave the towns they had captured, including Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad on the Syrian-Turkish border. The extremists responded with terror attacks: abductions and killings of civilians, bombardments of towns and villages, explosions of land mines and car bombs and demolitions of local administration buildings," she said.
The leading Kurdish parties called on the young to join self-defense units after the murder of prominent Kurdish opposition leader Issa Ibrahim Hiso in Qamishli early this week, Zakharova said.
"The lack of response of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and the Free Syrian Army to the appeal of Syrian Kurdish leaders for joint deterrence of the extremists has exacerbated the problem," she noted.
Moscow strongly condemns attacks of radicals against Kurdish civilians, Zakharova said.
"We consider their actions to be incitement of an ethnic and religious feud and an attempt to undermine Syrian unity and the security of the region as a whole. We intend to insist that the Syrian authorities and all opposition groups, among them the Supreme Kurdish Council in Syria, take part in the preparations for an international peace conference on Syria, which have already begun, and that they commit themselves to the elimination or banishment from Syria of every terrorist and extremist organization associated with Al Qaeda," she stated.
