Rojava Asayish General Command has issued a written statement regarding the clashes of the last 3 days in Qamishlo. In the statement, a ceasefire was announced to go into effect as of 15:30 on April 22.

Rojava Asayish General Command declared that following the attempts of the rûspîs (opinion leaders) in the region, they have declared a ceasefire so the problems in Qamishlo can be solved, but there will be firm retaliation if there are any provocations or attempts at violating the ceasefire.

The statement by Rojava Asayish General Command is as follows:

“The city of Qamishlo has been experiencing a period of conflict since April 19 due to the Regime’s attempts on creating disturbances, interfering with the interior affairs of the region’s population, detaining young people and forcibly enlisting them to the army, arming civilians and inciting them against each other. The regime’s approach and policies show that regime forces still insist on their policies that caused the Syrian peoples to rise up in Serhildans. The Baath regime wants to reap the rewards of Geneva-3 talks and the ceasefire in Syria. This is why they underestimated our patrolling forces and this has resulted in the martyrdom of 3 of our members. Meanwhile the regime has detained some young people.

Therefore, we have intervened as the Rojava Asayiş forces to fulfill our responsibility of ensuring the security of the people and the region.

The intervention has resulted in clashes. These clashes have disrupted the attacks of the regime forces and their plans for creating unrest in the region have failed. Also in these clashes, the central prison that was known as the regime’s barbarism and terror base and several other positions have been cleared of regime forces with the help of YPG fighters.

3 YPG fighters and 7 Asayiş members have been martyred in these clashes. As a result of the regime targeting neighborhoods with mortar shells, 17 civilians were also martyred.

Our forces have killed 31 members of the regime forces and taken 102 of them prisoner, with the support from YPG. All prisoners in the prison reclaimed from the regime have been freed.

On the attempts and calls from rûspîs (opinion leaders) and ashiret (clan) leaders for the end of the conflict, we announce to the public that we are declaring a ceasefire starting from today (April 22) at 15:30. The parties to the ceasefire will work on resolving the conflict. And we will uphold the ceasefire on our part until a suitable solution for the security of the region’s population against the terroristic approach of the Syrian regime forces can be found.

But, we will retaliate appropriately if we see the regime forces using this ceasefire for other goals, or notice a provocative situation. Our answer will be much harsher than the first one.

We call on our people again to act in awareness and responsibility.

We bow down with respect in the face of the memories of all our martyrs and offer our condolences to their families. We repeat our promise to follow up on the struggle until we make their goals come to life and wish a quick recovery to all those who are wounded.

The labor of our people and our martyrs and the gains we have achieved will not go to waste. We will protect the gains of the revolution with all our might. Lastly, we salute the heroic resistance of our people and the Social Defense Forces/HPC in particular.”