Tel Abyad joins Kurdish-led ‘gov’t’ in Syria, increasing Kurdish influence at Turkish border

A Syrian town captured by Kurdish-led forces from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in June joined the Kurdish-led political order in northern Syria on Wednesday, officials said, a move likely to deepen Turkish concerns about the Kurds' expanding role just over the border.


The town of Tel Abyad was captured by the Kurdish People's Protection (YPG) militia with help from US-led air strikes.

A local leadership council, including representatives of Tel Abyad's Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen and Armenian communities, met to declare the town part of the system of autonomous self government established by the Kurds, according to two officials who attended the meeting.

An official in the Syrian Kurdish administration, Delil Osman, said the area had been declared a new province, or "canton" -- the fourth such area declared by the Kurds in northern Syria since the eruption of the country's war.

However the website of a Syrian Kurdish party, the PYD, reported that a meeting underway in Tel Abyad aimed to declare the town part of the nearby canton of Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town to the west also known as Ayn al-Arab.

The YPG's capture of Tel Abyad joined together the Kurdish-controlled Kobani with the bigger Kurdish-held area of Jazeera further east at the border with Iraq.

Syria's Kurds deny they want to establish their own state, but Turkey is alarmed by their territorial gains, which it fears could stir separatism among its own Kurdish minority.

The PYD website reported that the meeting in Tel Abyad was attended by officials from the Kobani area, representatives of the YPG and Arab groups that have been fighting alongside it.
 REUTERS WITH TODAY'S ZAMAN
21/10/15
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