Ilham Ahmed: If we are stuck in the corner, we prefer Assad to Erdogan!

The Kurds reject Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plan to establish a buffer zone (Safe Area) in northern Syria and are conducting talks with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to protect their areas, an official said on Wednesday.

“The truth is that the situation is uncomfortable for us on both sides, but we have no other choice.

If we’re stuck in a corner of choice between the Turks and reach an agreement with the Syrian president, we’ll we will choose President Assad of course”, Ilham Ahmed, an official of the Syria Democratic Forces said in an interview with Bloomberg in Washington.

She added, “the Kurds strongly reject Erdogan’s plan to create a buffer zone in northern Syria on the grounds that it will become a “swamp of terrorism” and will not be safe for all Kurds”.

“We’ll fight the Turks if the Turkish president sends his troops to our regions, and we can protect the safe area ourselves, and we will defend ourselves by all means”, she said.

“The Kurds handed President Assad and his ally Russia a road map of 11 points to reintegrate the Kurdish areas under the authority of the Syrian government,” she said.

“Syria should be based on a decentralized system, although we do not seek secession”, she said.

The Kurdish official said that she was visiting Washington for assurances from the US administration on the status of the Kurds after its decision to withdraw its troops from Syria, expressing the hope that the United States will not set a deadline for the withdrawal of these forces.

She warned that if the Kurds are excluded from any settlement in Syria, there will be a new wave of violence in the country, stressing that Washington must seek to find a political solution acceptable to the conflict between the Kurds and Turkey, and the future of Syria.