The Barzani-backed Kurdish National Council (KNC) on Saturday called on Turkey to stop its attacks on Afrin under the excuse of the presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“Turkey continues to escalate its threats to invade the Kurdish region of Afrin,” the KNC said.

“The Kurdish National Council in Syria condemns the Turkish threats and attempts to enter Afrin which would result in a state of destruction and destroying this safe area which hosts hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians,” the KNC said.

One of them was killed on Saturday. 9-year Yahya Hamadeh from Idlib was killed in Afrin by a Turkish air strike, Kurdish officials say.

“The KNC sees such threats and actions as unhelpful to protect [Turkey’s] security,” the KNC said. Therefore, the KNC called on Turkey to stop its threats and shelling which would harm the Kurdish people.



The KNC also called on the PYD to ‘withdraw the pretexts exploited by Turkey to justify its threats and stop it’s language of escalation.’



The KNC called on Russia and the United States to face their responsibility to end the escalation, stop the crisis and protect Kurdish areas.

So far, the PYD and the KNC have not been able to share power in northern Syria, and have been working against each other after the failure of the last Duhok agreement in October 2014 and agreements to share power before in Erbil.

This despite the fact that both agree that federalism is the future for northern Syria.

While the KNC wants a geographic federal Kurdistan region of Syria, the PYD wants a multi-ethnic non-geographic federal region for northern Syria.

Nevertheless, the KNC is also against a Turkish attack on the Kurdish region of Afrin that have cost the lives of civilians.

“The People's Protection Units [YPG] confirmed that the raids of the Turkish occupation army targeted 100 points, mostly civilian sites, killing 6 civilians and 3 fighters and wounding 13 civilians,” Abdulkarim Omar, the Foreign Affairs head of the Jazira Canton said on Saturday.

The YPG blamed the Russian government for allowing Turkey to carry out the attack.