Syrian Kurds formalise control over captured area

Beirut: Kurdish-led authorities in northern Syria have formalised control over an area at the Turkish border captured from Daesh in June, a Kurdish official said, a move likely to fuel Turkish concerns about expanding Kurdish influence.

The area includes the town of Tel Abyad, captured by the Kurdish YPG militia with help from US-led air strikes.

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 Ain Al Arab.

The YPG’s capture of Tel Abyad joined together the Kurdish-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.