Turkey says PKK/YPG in an in-house fight for influence
The PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the YPG, are in a dispute over which group will have the most influence, according to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu , “There is a conflict between the Qandil and Ferhat Abdi Şahin,” Soylu told Hürriyet Daily News on Nov. 21. Qandil is the name of the mountain in northern Iraq where the PKK has its main headquarters and training camps, and Ferhat Abdi Şahin, codenamed Mazlum Kobane, is now the leader of the YPG who is based in eastern Syria. The YPG was formed in northern Syria upon the instructions of the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, to expand and coordinate the PKK’s activities in Turkey’s southern neighboring country. Turkey had designated the YPG as the PKK’s offshoot in Syria and has been actively fighting against it since mid-2016 in Syrian territories. “My observations in the past three years tell me about an internal conflict between Qandil over the status of Öcalan. The Qandil prefers Selahattin Demirtaş (as the lead