After President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s moderate statements against the Syrian regime, there was a last-minute development that would set the agenda. In these days when PKK/YPG increased its attacks against Turkey, it was learned that the Assad regime cut off fuel to the neighborhoods where the terrorist organization is nesting.
In these days when relations between Syria and Turkey are expected to enter a new era, a critical move came from Assad. The Bashar Assad regime stopped the flow of fuel to Sheikh Maksut and Eşrefiyye districts occupied by the terrorist organization PKK/YPG in the city center of Aleppo in northern Syria.
According to information obtained from local sources, the Assad regime wanted to replace the so-called local council of the organization in Sheikh Maksut and Eşrefiyye districts, where PKK/YPG terrorists are nesting in Aleppo, using the so-called local elections on September 18 in the regions they control in Syria.
Sources noted that the terrorist organization opposed this request and that the regime forces imposed a ban on the entry of fuel to Sheikh Maksut and Eşrefiyye as of November 26.
Due to the fuel crisis, most of the generators supplying electricity to these neighborhoods were disabled.
The Assad regime forces blockaded Sheikh Maksut and Eşrefiyye neighborhoods on April 7, and in response, the PKK/YPG blockaded the Assad regime forces in Haseke province and Qamishli district on April 9.
The regime prevented the entry of materials such as fuel, flour, food and medicine to the neighborhoods during the blockade that lasted for about 10 days.
PRESENCE OF PKK/YPG IN ALEPPO CITY CENTER
The Assad regime left some areas in the north of the country to the PKK/YPG, on the condition that it would not take any armed action against it, after popular movements and armed resistance increased in 2012. In this way, the PKK/YPG began to nest in the aforementioned neighborhoods in the city center of Aleppo.
In 2016, the organization provided strategic support through the Sheikh Maksut District in the regime and Russia’s siege and capture of Aleppo.
While the regime allows the PKK/YPG presence in the center of Aleppo, which it holds, the organization, in turn, allows the regime to have a presence at some points throughout Hasakah province. In Haseke, in the northeast of the country, the parties occasionally engage in short-term conflicts arising from the struggle for dominance.
