Badran Ciya Kurd, an adviser to the Kurdish administration in northern Syria who meets regularly with Russian and U.S. officials, told The AP that Russian officials suggested to commanders in the Kurdish militant group to hand over Afrin to the Syrian government, saying that would avert the Turkish offensive.
Turkey launched a military operation against Afrin in northwestern Syria controlled by the People's Defense Units, or the YPG.
According to the AP, another senior Kurdish official told Kurdish Sterk TV that in two meetings days before the offensive, Russian officials asked the militant to cooperate by delivering Afrin to the Syrian government. A third official, Ilham Ahmed, held Moscow responsible for the Afrin attack, saying it gave the Kurds two alternatives: either hand over Afrin to the Syrian government or deal with the Turkish offensive. Afrin is encircled by government forces and Turkey-backed insurgents.
Ciya Kurd, who met with U.S. officials last week, said the Americans said they have tried to avert an offensive by appealing to Ankara but that Turkey was determined to carry out the offensive, the report said.
The YPG has reportedly accused Russia for giving the green light for the Turkish military operation in Afrin. "We know that the Turkish military would not have attacked [Afrin] without the approval of the international community, at the top of them Russia that deployed their forces in Afrin," YPG General Command said as quoted by Rudaw.
SYRIA REJECTS KURDISH PYD PROPOSAL TO RESTORE STATE INSTITUTIONS IN AFRIN
On Friday, Al-Masdar News reported that the Syrian government rejected Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party's (PYD) proposal to restore state institutions in Afrin.
According to a source, the PYD offered to raise the flag of Syria over their buildings and to restore state institutions in exchange for their continued support in Afrin. However, the government rejected the proposal after the PYD refused to allow Syrian security forces inside Afrin, it said.
The government fears that accepting this proposal will leave their institutions at the mercy of the Kurdish security forces, who have harassed their employees in other regions of the country, including in the northeastern cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, the report said.
