“When there are political disputes in a political party, as they claim,” he told Kurdistan 24, “they would not be able to nominate themselves for the leadership and secretary of that party. They attempted to divide the party during the congress. They carried out a coup against the constitution and the congress of the party and we ordered their punishment.”
Biro blamed external Kurdish parties for the breakdown, adding, “They will not have their seats in the council [of the party], because we are aware there is a role by the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] and its intelligence in this incident,” he added.
“They know that and have confessed to it.”
However, Hasan Salih, the new party’s leader, said the split was caused instead by internal divisions.
“Our friends [in Yekîtî], instead of accepting the need for changes and reforms, have ordered for the dismissal of four of our friends in Germany and Kurdistan Region, who were previously elected – despite internal procedures which do not allow for such an order,” he said.
In a video he posted on social media on Saturday, Salih claimed that the dispute was also caused by the KNC position on Afrin, which Turkey and Turkish-backed militias began occupying last year.
He said, “Our Congress had decided to declare the state of Turkey as occupiers in Kurdistan, specifically in Afrin as a part of Kurdistan – but the media of the PYK-S does not say this – and that is a big disagreement.”
During the Turkish attack on Afrin in February 2018, a small faction in the Yekîtî party in the KNC temporarily withdrew from the KNC because it refused to leave the Turkish-backed Syrian National Coalition that backed the military operation.
According to Schmidinger, the Austrian expert on Syrian Kurds, the “ambiguous stand of the party” on Afrin, and the continued support for the Turkish backed opposition also caused “criticism within the party.”
“Besides personal rivalries and power struggles, this could be one of the reasons for the split."