WASHINGTON,— The US State Department said that Washington views the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) and Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as “two separate entities.”

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on Wednesday said in an interview with al-Monitor that the PYD and the PKK are exactly one and the same thing, and he also said that Americans know this very well, but they don’t want to say it, as the top priority is the fight against Islamic State (IS), so they turn a blind eye PYD relation with PKK.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a daily press briefing “We still adhere to what our policy’s been for the past many months, which is that we view the PKK as a foreign terrorist organization. We condemn its – the violence that it carries out against Turkish civilians and citizens.”

“And separately, we have been working with the PYD – or YPG, rather, in parts of Syria as part of a number of groups we’re working with who are actively fighting and dislodging Daesh or ISIL from territory it controls. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had disagreements with them when they try to hold territory or not – or declare semi-autonomous self-rule zones.” Toner said.

” We disagree with them on that and we have frank discussions with them about that. But they are part of a number of groups that have been very effective in taking the fight against – or taking the fight, rather, to Daesh. I respect his opinion, just as we respect and listen to the Turkish authorities when they express their concerns to us, but we still view this as two separate entities.”

The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 78-million population. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

Syria’s Kurds on March 17, declared a federal region in Syrian Kurdistan in the country’s Kurdish north. Both the Damascus government and the main Syrian opposition grouping involved in UN-brokered peace negotiations in Geneva have rejected last Thursday’s move by the Kurds.

The powerful Kurdish People’s Protection Units YPG forces, PYD’s military wing, which the U.S. and Russia consider an ally in the fight against IS, are the most effective group fighting Islamic State (IS) in Syria, as the Kurdish militia has seized swathes of Syria from IS.

(With files from state.gov)

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