The head of Syria’s Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Salih Muslim, says the United States has denied him a visa to enter the country for the first time during President Trump’s era, despite the Trump administration’s decision to provide the PYD’s armed forces with weapons to fight the Islamic State (ISIS).
Prior to this rejection, the Obama administration also refused to allow Muslim to enter the country. As the head of the PYD, Muslim runs the political organization affiliated with the People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), a Syrian Kurdish militia operating near the Turkish border, considered by both Russia and the United States as one of the most successful combat units fighting ISIS in the region.
The YPG allegedly maintains friendly relations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist, U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The government of Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist organization under the PKK umbrella, while American authorities treat the groups as separate entities.
Muslim had applied for a visa after receiving an invitation to speak at a conference on Kurdish issues in Washington on May 30, according to the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw. In a video conference with officials, he explained the “difficult situation”:
“They told me about two months ago that it is refused and we are just waiting for a strong man to invite me directly,” he told the audience, apparently alluding to President Donald Trump, but later explaining that he would likely require any high-ranking U.S. government officer, congressmen, in particular, to personally request his presence in the country.
“I think it depends on a brave man who just can take me with him to the United States with a direct invitation for me,” he added.
Muslim nonetheless expressed optimism that the Trump administration would continue to support the YPG and, by proxy, the PYD, stating that he expected cooperation to “widen into the political field, as well as the diplomatic field,” according to Kurdistan24.
The Turkish newspaper Sabah, which is friendly to the government of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressed optimism that the Trump administration was moving in the opposite direction and that the rejection of a visa application from Muslim highlighted the conditional relationship between Washington and the PYD.
The newspaper argued:
The Trump administration’s decision to refuse recognizing the PYD leader as a legitimate contact underlines the point made by Jonathan Cohen, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, that the U.S. and YPG partnership was more tactical in nature, and not something strategic.
Kurdistan24 quotes a “senior State Department official” essentially agreeing: “There really is only one option for Raqqa,” he said, referring to the YPG.
Muslim’s personal travel situation aside, all signs indicate that the Trump administration will continue its support for the YPG. A number of Turkish publications reported this week that uas many as 100 American trucks carrying weapons to the YPG were moving towards their positions against the Islamic State in Syria. Turkish newspaper Hurriyet listed the items sent as “fuel oil, military armored vehicles, heavy construction equipment and ammunition.”
The trucks began their journeys less than a month after the Pentagon officially announced it would increase its weapons support for the “Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces” – the YPG. In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Dana White asserted that the weapons were being handed to the YPG because they were the “only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future.”
Raqqa is not within Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan, and was a largely Arab city before the Islamic State takeover, alarming observers like Turkey who fear the Kurds may use the liberation of the Islamic State “capital” to expand their territory. Turkish officials called the Pentagon move “unacceptable” and claimed a robust PYD was a threat to the Turkish state. Turkish warplanes also responded to the Pentagon announcement by striking Kurdish positions near the Turkish border.
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