Syrian Kurds warn Iran’s Kurds on US ties

Kurdish residents of northeast Syria warned Iran’s Kurds against aligning with the US to fight the Iranian government, citing their own experience in Syria in recent months as evidence their Iranian counterparts would be “abandoned.”

Iranian Kurdish militias based in northern Iraq have consulted with the United States in recent days about whether and how to attack security forces in western Iran, as the United States and Israel pound Iran with air strikes, Reuters has reported.

But Syria’s Kurds warned their Iranian counterparts against partnering with Washington.

“I hope that the Kurds of Iran will not ally themselves with America, because they will abandon them,” said Saad Ali, a 45-year-old resident of the northeastern Syrian Kurdish town of Qamishli. “Tomorrow, if an agreement is made between them (the US) and the Iranians, they will eliminate you. Do not make our mistakes,” he told Reuters.

Syrian Kurdish fighters aligned with the US more than a decade ago to fight the Islamic State group.

But in January, Syria’s new army under President Ahmed al-Sharaa captured most of the Kurdish-held areas in a sweeping offensive.

Syria’s Kurds called on the US to intervene on their behalf, and felt betrayed when Washington instead urged them to merge with Sharaa’s forces.

It remains a bitter experience for Syria’s Kurds and a lesson they say should be heeded by Iranian Kurds.