Unknown gunmen attack the headquarters of the Kurdish Council in Al-Darbasiyah

Shafaq News / Unidentified persons opened fire at the Kurdish National Council's headquarters late last night, Sunday, in the city of Al-Darbasiyah in northeastern Syria.

Al-Darbasiyah is located on the border strip north of Hasakah, and it is one of the Kurdish cities of the Autonomous Administration led by the Kurds in northeastern Syria.

Idris Sheikh Khalaf, head of the Kurdish National Council in Al-Darbasiyah, told Shafaq News that unknown persons driving a silver-colored "van" opened fire with automatic weapons at 12:20 a.m. at the headquarters of the Kurdish National Council in the city, causing great damage.

Khalaf explained, "this incident and behavior does not serve the Kurdish dialogue. Those who stand behind it want to thwart the efforts aimed at uniting the Kurds in Syria through the negotiations that have been in place for months."

Bashar Amin, a member of the political bureau of the Kurdistan Democratic Party -Syria (the largest party of the Kurdish Council), posted on Facebook, "Unidentified persons attempted to set fire to the car of the deputy head of the local council in Al-Darbasiyah and a member of the advisory body in Kurdistan Democratic Party-Syria, Ashraf al-Mulla, after midnight by a Molotov cocktail. The fire was extinguished without causing any material damage."

Amin described the incident as a "suspicious and coward act. A desperate attempt to target the efforts and preparations for the resumption of Kurdish-Kurdish negotiations."

Attacks on the Kurdish National Council's headquarters in the Autonomous Administration regions have been repeated over the past years, and the Kurdish Council has always held armed groups linked to the Democratic Union Party responsible for these acts, which is repeatedly described as "intimidating."

The leader of the Kurdish National Council, Fasla Youssef, revealed on Wednesday that the third phase of negotiations between the two poles of the Kurdish political movement is imminent.

Youssef explained in a statement to Shafaq News agency, "the deputy U.S. special envoy for Syria, David Brownstein, expressed his country's support for launching a new phase of Kurdish negotiations, in continuation of what has been accomplished and agreed upon in the previous stages, with the same conditions."

The Kurdish National Council (which includes 16 parties) and the Kurdish national unity parties (includes 25 political parties and movements) began negotiations under the auspices of the U.S. in the Autonomous Administration area in northeastern Syria, and the supervision of the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi. The negotiations that began in early April of the current year aimed to unify the Kurds in Syria and involve the Kurdish Council in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.