Prague, Feb 26 (CTK) – The Czechs authorities should set free Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim wanted by Turkey, who was detained in Prague at the weekend, and not succumb to the pressure by President Recep Erdogan’s regime, Teodor Marjanovic wrote in Monday’s Hospodarske noviny.
The Syrian Kurds are the most reliable allies of the West, to which the Czech Republic would like to belong, and they are basically the allied ground forces of this conflict. In other words, those who think that the worst terrorist network of the present times, Islamic State (IS), was crushed thanks to Russian fighters are wrong.
The IS “butchers” were defeated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) Kurdish militia, which the United States have supported with arms for years, Marjanovic writes.
This should be kept in mind when reading the news about the former head of the YPG’s political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Northern Syria, Muslim, being arrested in Prague’s Marriott Hotel on Saturday night on the basis of an Interpol arrest warrant initiated by Turkey.
This man has been touring European countries these days, calling on them to condemn the Turkish troops’ invasion in Northern Syria with the aim to “annihilate” local Kurds, launched a few weeks ago.
Muslim has not been on such a tour for the first time. In 2016, he was invited to the European Parliament (EP) where he spoke about his nation at a conference held under the aegis of two Nobel Peace prize winners, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
During the current tout, Muslim was lecturing in Switzerland and visited Brussels again. He told reporters that the Turkish government was occupying part of the Syrian territory “with the aim to reach demographic changes,” that is to expel Kurds from the land.
Since no one is willing to help Kurds, they have no other choice, but to turn to Bashar Assad’s regime in Damascus. However, they have one interesting condition that this aid must not include fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the organisation listed among terrorist groups by the EU and USA, and other guerilla groups armed by Iran, Marjanovic writes.
Turkey issued a warrant for the arrest of Muslim in 2016 already, but he was not arrested anywhere in Europe. Only the Czechs showed such “zeal.” They have not realised or do not want to admit that Erdogan is abusing the Interpol network against his opponents, in this case arguing with Muslim’s alleged participation in a terrorist attack in Turkey.
“Our country still has time to realise it must set the Kurdish representative free. There is still time not to accept the dirty bargaining that Erdogan would definitely welcome – that is to exchange this man for two Czechs prosecuted by the Ankara regime for alleged fighting side by side with the YPG,” Marjanovic concludes.
