Syrian Kurd exodus to Iraq raises prospect of cross-border action

By Suadad al-Salhy and Murad Talaat

BAGHDAD/PESHKHABOUR, Iraq |(Reuters) - A sudden mass influx of 30,000 Kurdish refugees from Syria into Iraq increases the likelihood that Iraq's Kurdish region will act to protect its kin across the border, an adviser to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said on Monday.

The United Nations said nearly 30,000 refugees had crossed in the past few days, making it one of the biggest single outward migrations of a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people and driven millions from their homes.
"It is a massive movement of people," Dan McNorton, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters on Monday.

UN should condemn the Kurds massacre in Syria: Sergei Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said UN should condemn the Kurds massacre in Syria, following reports saying over 400 Kurds were killed by Al-Qaeda linked rebels.
"We were shocked yesterday by media reports saying that around 450 peaceful Kurds, including more than 100 children, were slaughtered in northern Syria because men from their tribe were fighting against Jabhat al-Nusra."
"I consider that the UN Security Council will strongly condemn terrorism without any preconditions and will be consistent in its position. We could see previously that some members of the UN Security Council did not want to condemn terrorism in Syria on the assumption that, regardless of the fact that this sounds cynical, those who commit terrorist acts fight against the exhausted regime. This position is absolutely unacceptable. There should be no double standards in regards to terrorism," Lavrov said. [Reuters]

Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is preparing to host a conference together from Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey.

Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is preparing to host a conference that will bring together Kurdish parties from Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, an official said.

"The general conference will be held within a month from now," Adnan al-Mufti, a senior member of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, told AFP news agency on Wednesday.
A preparatory meeting was held in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, on Monday, and was attended by 39 Kurdish parties.
"We want a complete agreement and a just and peaceful solution for the Kurdish issue," Kurdistan region president Massud Barzani told the meeting.
Major Kurdish populations are spread across four countries - Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
One of the most pressing issues is that of the Kurds in war-torn Syria, where they make up about 15 percent of the population and are mostly concentrated in the north.
Kurdish regions of Syria have been run by local Kurdish councils since President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew from the areas in mid-2012.
The Kurds have walked a fine line, trying to avoid antagonising either the Assad regime or the rebels seeking its overthrow, but fierce fighting has recently broken out between Kurdish forces and jihadists opposed to Assad.
And Syrian Kurdish officials said last week that they are planning to create a temporary autonomous government to administer Kurdish regions in the north of country.
[AFP]

Kurds seize town on Syrian-Turkish border

(Reuters) - A Syrian Kurdish party with links to Kurdish militants in Turkey has seized control of a Syrian town on the Turkish border after days of clashes with Islamist fighters, the Turkish military said.
The capture of Ras al-Ain by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) will fuel Ankara's fears that the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could embolden homegrown militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
Turkey's foreign minister voiced concern at the spillover of violence from Syria and again urged the U.N. Security Council, which has yet to reach a consensus on the war, to take action.
In a statement late on Wednesday, the military said the town of Ras al-Ain in northeast Syria had fallen under the control of the PYD, which it described as a "separatist terrorist organization". Fighting in the town has stopped, it said.
Turkish troops shot at PYD fighters in Syria in line with their rules of engagement after two rocket-propelled grenades fired from Syria struck a border post on the Turkish side.
The return fire was the second time in as many days that the military had answered in kind. Stray bullets from Syria struck the police headquarters and several homes in the adjacent Turkish town of Ceylanpinar on Tuesday.
A Turkish citizen was killed and a 15-year-old boy seriously wounded by the stray fire, in the most serious spillover of violence into Turkey from Syria in weeks. Earlier, officials said the boy had died of his wounds, but later they said he was still in a critical condition and had been moved to Ankara.
The military said it had strengthened security along that part of the border with armored vehicles.
The clashes between Kurdish fighters, who want an autonomous region within Syria, and Islamist Arab fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front started on Tuesday after Nusra fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol, according to an anti-government Syrian activist group.
Clashes between Kurds affiliated with the PYD and Syrian and foreign fighters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have erupted since Kurds began asserting control over parts of the northeast from late last year.
PEACE PROCESS
Turkey, with its own large Kurdish minority, has been watching closely, concerned that a Kurdish power grab to the south could strengthen PKK militants in Turkey with whom it has embarked on a peace process. Developments in Syria could threaten that process, which is already under pressure amid an increase in militant activity in Turkey.
On Thursday, the PKK accused Ankara of being behind the violence in Ras al-Ain.
"Turkey is directly behind the attacks, particularly in Serekaniye," the PKK said in a statement published by the Firat news agency which has close links to the militants. Serekaniye is the Kurdish name for Ras al-Ain.
"This fact alone shows how much the revolution in Rojava frightens those who are anti-Kurdish," it said, referring to the Kurdish region in northeastern Syria.
Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the BDP, has accused Ankara of directly backing Nusra and affiliated groups. Turkey is one of the strongest backers of Syria's anti-Assad rebels, though it has tried to distance itself from groups like Nusra.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, an expert on the PKK and security at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) think-tank, said the events in Syria would likely embolden the PKK.
"Firstly, there will be a psychological effect, and as the PKK watches these developments they will make more maximalist demands from the government. They will sit down to negotiations with the government as a much stronger actor," Ozcan said.
"The PKK has gained an important resource in the area, it has gained depth and will also make economic gains. This is good news for the PKK," he said.
Turkey's foreign minister expressed concern over the events.
"This illustrates a striking picture of how much the crisis in Syria can affect us and our citizens," state-run broadcaster TRT quoted Ahmet Davutoglu as saying in Ankara on Wednesday.
Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, is reluctant to act unilaterally in Syria, although it has scrambled warplanes along the border as gunfire and shelling hit its soil. Turkey hosts around 500,000 Syrian refugees.
(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Jonathon Burch, Editing by Gareth Jones)
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/18/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBRE96H0TU20130718