Kurdistan Region—An official from Syria’s most influential Kurdish party expresses his opposition to the creation of an interim government for the country.

Mahmoud Mohammed, known as Abu Sabir, a senior official from the Democratic Union Party (PYD) told Rudaw “it is not the time to form an interim government. It is time to unify all Syrian opposition groups to bring down (President Bashar) al-Assad’s regime and not create an interim government.”

In the past two months, the PYD has been in control of several Kurdish towns where the Syrian regime has ceded power and shifted its military to parts of the country where the rebels are more active.

The PYD claims to have “liberated” those areas, but it is believed the PYD was handed control of the Kurdish areas based on an agreement with the regime in Damascus.

During a recent meeting with French President Francois Holland, the head of the Syrian National Council (SNC), an umbrella opposition group, spoke of “intensive talks with all the components of Syria to form an interim government.”

SNC’s leader Abdulbaset Sieda, who is an ethnic Kurd, added “we work seriously to announce as soon as possible that government which will include all the components of Syria.”

But PYD’s Mohammed says, “The formation of an interim government will only add to the differences and will not resolve the situation.”

The PYD is perceived as a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has been fighting the Turkish state for Kurdish rights for nearly three decades.

Turkish leaders have expressed concern about the PYD’s rising influence in Syrian Kurdistan, saying Turkey has the right to military intervention should the PYD’s control of the area mean PKK influence.

The PYD, on its part, denies any organic links to the PKK.

The uprising in Syria initially started as street protests but soon turned into an armed rebellion against Assad’s regime which has so far claimed more than 20,000 lives.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled the country and taken refuge in neighboring countries.

Last week alone, 200 Syrian Kurds crossed the border into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and settled in refugee camps in Duhok province.















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