Iraqi MP demands probe into training Syrian Kurdish soldiers in Kurdistan http://islamtimes.org/vdcbafb85rhbwap.4eur.html Islam Times - Training Syrian Kurdish soldiers in the Kurdistan Region violates Iraq’s constitution and interferes in Syria’s affairs, said Iraqi MP Hussein al-Assadi. He is now demanding a probe after the Kurdistan Region’s President Massoud Barzani said Syrian Kurdish soldiers who defected from the Syrian army have received military training in the region. President Barzani said the training will help the soldiers protect their Kurdish areas in Syria.

MP al-Assadi is from the Iraqi Prime Minister’s State of Law Coalition. Al-Assadi said the training will deepen Iraq’s crisis because foreign policy is the exclusive power of the Iraqi government - not the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Turkey is also disturbed by the news and is expected to send Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to the Kurdistan Region this week for talks. Kurdish self-rule in the Kurdish areas of Syria could open up demands for a similar self-rule region for Turkey’s Kurds. Turkey accuses Syria’s Kurdish Democratic Union Party of having links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The PKK has been using the Qandil Mountain areas of the Kurdistan Region for years to launch attacks on Turkish forces.

President Barzani said the soldiers are still in the Kurdistan Region but will return to their Kurdish areas to fill any security vacuums as the Syrian regime’s forces retreat. The soldiers will take their orders from the Supreme Kurdish Committee in Syria. The committee is a governing body of Kurdish-held regions in Syria. It united the Kurdish Democratic Union Party and the Kurdish National Council following an agreement signed in Arbil in July.

MP al-Assadi told local media that training Syrian Kurds in the Kurdistan Region is more dangerous than exporting oil. This is now another source of tension between Baghdad and Arbil. Several Kurdish towns in Syria have now been liberated and security vacuums are now a reality. So it may not be long before the Syrian Kurdish soldiers are called into action.