The KCK Foreign Relations Committee issued a statement in which it said that the collaborative policy followed by the KDP poses a great danger. The statement called on the people in all four parts of Kurdistan to take a stand and fight against these dangerous games of the KDP.

The statement reads as follows: "We are living in what can be called the Third World War - a very intense process. Significant changes are occurring globally and in the Middle East as a result of this process. The Israel-Hamas conflict remains strong as the Ukraine war is nearing its third year. In addition, the conflict over the Red Sea continues to get deeper and might yet spread to different areas. Even while the forces of capitalist modernity are at odds over interests, societies, especially women, are among those who suffer the greatest and pay dearly for these wars.

The fascist leader of the occupying Turkish state, Erdoğan, aims to use the current condition of conflict and contradiction to destroy Kurdish developments and to complete the genocide of Kurds. By marketing Turkey and making political concessions, Erdoğan is using all of Turkey’s resources, both above and below ground, as well as its geostrategic and geopolitical position to intensify this horrific war. He is encouraging intensive negotiations with the states in the region, particularly Iran, Syria, and Iraq, with the goal of gaining their support in this genocide. Therefore, by planning new invasion attempts, Erdoğan seeks to destroy all the accomplishments made by the Kurdish people in Rojava and South Kurdistan.

Kurds have an obligation to stand together against this invasion and these acts of genocide, even as the fascist Turkish state attempts to forge an anti-Kurdish alliance in the area and around the globe. Specifically, at this momentous time, it is the political forces in all four regions of Kurdistan that must come up with shared policies and tactics. The Barzani family, who control the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), is attempting to sacrifice the future of the Kurds for their own personal interests by allying with the anti-Kurdish alliance, rather than striving for the unification of the Kurds. The Kurds have suffered greatly as a result of the KDP’s stance, particularly in South Kurdistan. The KDP betrayed the cause of freedom of South Kurdistan with Ashbetal in 1975. After that, it continued this line of betrayal by developing the Birakujî war in East and South Kurdistan, and within this framework, it brought Saddam’s army to South Kurdistan in 1996 and committed massacres.

Since 2003, when South Kurdistan gained official status and the rights of Kurds in Iraq were constitutionally guaranteed, a great opportunity arose for the democratization of Iraq and the solution to the Kurdish question. However, the KDP administration tried to tear down the Iraqi constitution and make it futile on the one hand, while on the other hand, it took advantage of South Kurdistan’s political and economic opportunities for its own power, family, and party interests and handed them over to Turkey. The KDP administration believed that democracy and a resolution to the Kurdish question would harm its own family interests. This KDP policy is directly responsible for the current political (the local parliament and government have become dysfunctional) and economic (non-payment of civil servants’ salaries, unemployment, corruption, etc.) crises in South Kurdistan.

While the people of South Kurdistan are being forced to migrate as their circumstances worsen on a daily basis, the governing Barzani family of the KDP is accumulating wealth and transferring funds which have been plundered from the country’s residents to other countries. The people of South Kurdistan and Iraq have been under constant danger due to the KDP’s filthy policies. In the past, ISIS, which constituted a threat not only to Kurds but to all of humanity, was embraced by the KDP as its new neighbor. The KDP surrendered Shengal to the terrorist forces, leaving our Yazidi people helpless to face genocide.

As if this massacre was not enough, the KDP has put the gains of our people in south Kurdistan in great danger with its dirty policies. Now, by drawing the occupying Turkish state into the problems of Iraq and South Kurdistan, the fascist chief Erdoğan has opened a political vacuum in Iraq. Rather than relying on the Iraqi government and people to find solutions to the issues facing both Iraq and South Kurdistan, the KDP has surrendered to Erdoğan and the Turkish Republic, which continues to discriminate against the Kurds and engage in genocide.

The KDP is the power that enables the Turkish Republic to exert pressure on South Kurdistan and Iraq. It is the KDP that opened space for the occupying-genocidal Turkish army from the region of Zaxo to Sidekan. All the atrocities carried out by the Turkish state in South Kurdistan, ranging from the slaughter of innocent bystanders to the destruction of the environment, are covered up and given legitimacy by the KDP. The KDP administration has even betrayed the legacy of the struggle of Sheikh Abdulsalam Barzani, who was executed in Mosul by the Ottomans, by including the fascist Erdoğan, who has a Neo-Ottoman mentality, into its politics in Mosul and Kirkuk, seeking to realize the dreams of Misak-ı Milli.

The KDP now represents the biggest threat to all the hard-won victories that the people of South Kurdistan have made possible. Despite the obviousness of all these facts, Nechirvan Barzani, speaking for the KDP, attempts to legitimize the Turkish State’s attacks on South Kurdistan and Iraq by accusing the PKK of ‘causing issues for South Kurdistan and not respecting the institutions of South Kurdistan’. Nechirvan Barzani’s assertions are unaligned with historical facts, present conditions, political decorum, and moral principles. Everyone is well aware that Saddam’s army took control of South Kurdistan’s parliament building, which was given to them by the KDP. Twenty years later, at the Hewler gate, it was the KDP that denied entry to the elected president of this parliament. The KDP is attributed with destroying the concept of the “peshmerga” in Kurdistan, disarming them in 1975, and discrediting them so that they became the front-runner, defenders, and logistical backbone of Saddam Hussein’s army and the Turkish army that was occupying the region. The Kurdish Freedom Guerrilla and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fought against ISIS from the forefront and at tremendous sacrifice, defending the people of South Kurdistan, while the KDP was unable to protect itself and its people and withdrew from Shengal, Kirkuk, and Hewler.

While the KDP is handing Turkey the gains of Iraq and South Kurdistan, providing hundreds of bases and various logistical services to the invading Turkish army, and allowing terrorists linked to the Turkish intelligence service to operate freely in South Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas and the PKK are currently fiercely defending the people and their lands. ISIS and Turkey pose the same threat to South Kurdistan and Iraq. Since ISIS and fascist Erdoğan share the same political and intellectual background, battling the Turkish army that is encroaching on your area is equivalent to fighting ISIS.

Through the KDP, Turkey intervenes militarily, politically, and economically in Iraq. Rather than conducting politics in accordance with the interests of the peoples of South Kurdistan and Iraq, the KDP has evolved into an extension of Turkish foreign policy, politics, and intelligence. Based on this, it seeks to use Iraq’s diversity of ethnicity and religion as a springboard for conflict and contradiction. The Turkish Republic is attempting to sway Iraqi politics and even push the country toward its own anti-Kurdish political line by employing the KDP. These days, it is working with the KDP to entice KDP-affiliated gangs, such as the Roj and Zerevani, into guerrillas territories flying the Iraqi flag. While the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla strikes blow after blow at the invading Turkish army, the KDP is trying to save the Turkish soldiers.

The KDP is bringing the Turkish army to occupy Kurdish territory while disguising its complicity and betrayal under the Iraqi flag and operating under the name of the Iraqi Border Guards. We therefore urge the Iraqi government authorities to exercise caution when it comes to the stunts being carried out by the KDP and the Turkish government. We demand that the Iraqi government refrain from supporting the AKP-MHP, which is occupying and massacring Kurdistan, and from using the identity of the Iraqi Border Guards and the Iraqi flag to cover up and legitimize the crimes of the Turkish state.

We urge our people in all four regions of Kurdistan to take a stand and fight against the KDP’s dangerous games as a reaction to this collaborative policy that not only jeopardizes the achievements of our people in South Kurdistan but also allows for the possibility of the genocide of all Kurds. We urge all political parties, particularly those in South Kurdistan, to uphold their historical obligations and adopt a stance opposing the KDP’s cooperative and treacherous policies as well as the occupation of the region."