SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Sinjar mayor Mahma Khalil said on Tuesday that the presence of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) poses “a danger” to the people of the district.
Speaking to Esta Media Network, Khalil said local officials in the district had told Iraqi national security advisor Qassem Araji that the displaced people would not return to Sinjar if the PKK did not withdraw there.
Araji visited Sinjar on Monday to meet local officials and public figures in the district. He was accompanied by mayor of Mosul Zuher Araji and commander of west Nineveh operations Abdulkhaliq Khikani as well as several other officials including Nineveh security intelligence director.
His visit came after the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reached an agreement to normalize the governance and security situation in Sinjar on October 9.
Islamic State (ISIS) overran the Yazidi faith’s heartland of Sinjar in the Kurdistan Region in 2014, forcing young women into servitude as “wives” for its fighters and massacring men and older women.
The militants shot, beheaded, burned alive or kidnapped more than 9,000 members of the minority religion, in what the United Nations has called a genocidal campaign against them. According to community leaders, more than 3,000 Yazidis remain unaccounted for.
“Araji’s visit to Sinjar was a step to implement the agreement between the Region and Baghdad,” Khalil said.
