Elham Ahmed: Our presence in the "safe zone" will benefit Turkey

ARK News: Elham Ahmad, the co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) — the political wing of the SDF — explains the current situation in the areas under their control, as well as the proposed safe zone.

Elham Ahmad, the co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) said about her visit to Kurdistan region saying: “We have continuous and official relations with the Kurdistan Region. Such talks and relations which serve the interests of the people of Kurdistan are important for us and we will do everything possible in this regard”.

Elham Ahmed in statements to (BasNews ) said that we have relations with Kurdish National Council in Syria and we see them of significant importance. We believe that ENKS puts importance on its dialogue with us, and we welcome this position.

Concerning a safe zone, Elham Ahmed said that the US is taking every possible measure to prevent a conflict in the region. The presence of our forces in such a safe zone will not be a threat to Turkey because our presence there has not created any problems to Turkey and we have not attacked them. We will not attack Turkey if they don’t. But we, within the international laws, will defend ourselves if they attack us. The people of Turkey should remember that it has been the Turkish government using violence against us, and we only defended ourselves. We, as a neighbor to Turkey, have always been seeking dialogue.
After all, the creation of a safe zone is only in talks now with no conclusions so far. What is important is that such a safe zone should bring peace and stability, not war and violence.

About her visit to America Ahmed said that it was not the first time I visited the US. It is a strong and important country with whom we fought against Da’esh [Islamic State] terrorists and we were victorious. However, after our victory, IS could revive if there are no political and administrative plans. Therefore, US support is vital hereafter. We were well received in the US and I can say that the visit was positive. We asked for support to the Kurds everywhere.

Ahmed continued that it is true that Da’esh is physically defeated, but their sleeper cells live on. Our next goal is to eliminate these sleeper cells. Also, we work in the liberated areas to provide a deserving life for the locals, such as good education, good welfare. Self-governance is one of our principles. Besides all these, the IS detainees are another issue that we have to deal with. We need to institutionalize [the rule in our areas] so to send the detainees to a fair trial. For this, we will need support from the international community.

Concerning their relations with the Syrian regime, she stressed saying: “Here I would like to make it clear to everyone that there are no talks between us and the Syrian regime. There were some talks last year, but they were cut and not restored yet. The reason is that we wanted the Syrian regime to play a role in resolving the issues in these areas, and it was reluctant. We hope that Syria would take steps to address the issues in these areas through peaceful and democratic means”.

Source: BasNews

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