ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Hundreds of Kurdish protesters gathered outside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s office on Tuesday, calling on the UK to take action against the Syrian military\u2019s offensive on Kurdish-held areas in northeast Syria (Rojava).<\/p>\n
Demonstrators demanded that the UK pressure the Syrian interim government to halt its operations against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).<\/p>\n
A protester said, \u201cWe fought on behalf of the world. We defeated Daesh – Islamic State [ISIS] – on behalf of the entire world. If today\u2019s war is against the Kurds, tomorrow it will reach Britain. If nothing is done to help the Kurds, ISIS will arrive here tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SDF, which serves as Rojava\u2019s de facto military force, played a decisive role in defeating ISIS in Syria in 2019 and was the sole on-the-ground partner of the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS until Syria joined in November.<\/p>\n
Another protester added, \u201cEnough of killing the Kurds. The Peshmerga and other [Kurdish] fighters defeated ISIS on behalf of the entire world. If the world turns its back on us, old and new terrorists will return.\u201d<\/p>\n
The escalation in Rojava came less than 24 hours after Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa reached an agreement with SDF chief Mazloum Abdi to \u201cimmediately\u201d halt violence and bring SDF-administered areas under state control. <\/p>\n
Abdi traveled to Damascus on Monday for talks with Sharaa, but a senior official from the Kurdish-led administration told Rudaw that the meeting was not positive.<\/p>\n
Fighting continued through Tuesday until the Syrian government announced it had reached \u201ca mutual understanding\u201d with the SDF on several issues concerning the future of the Kurdish-majority Hasaka province, according to Syrian state media.<\/p>\n
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted the Syrian presidency as confirming that \u201ca mutual understanding has been reached between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on a number of issues concerning the future of Hasaka province.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agreement comes after a mid-January military operation launched by the Syrian Arab Army and allied armed groups, aimed at taking control of SDF-held areas. The offensive initially targeted regions east of Aleppo, then expanded to Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, and most recently focused on Hasaka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Hundreds of Kurdish protesters gathered outside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s office on Tuesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[42170,42169,748,393,4884,42168,257,42167,42166,16,15],"class_list":["post-709700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-and-turkish","tag-arabic","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-kurdish","tag-london","tag-publishing-in-english","tag-rudaw-is-a-broadcast-and-digital-news-network-based-in-the-kurdistan-region-of-iraq","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115930162984609658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}