The Rojava Committee with YPJ Commander Nesrin Abdullah, Cizîr Canton Foreign Minister Abdulkerim Omar and Assyrian National Council Head Bassam İshak have completed their week-long diplomatic work in Sweden with a press conference after the opening ceremony of Rojava Representation Office in Sweden. Tev-Dem Co-chair Sinem Muhammed also attended the opening ceremony and the press conference.

Abdullah, Omar and İshak met with Social Democrat Workers Party, Green Party, Feminist Initiative officials and Left Party leader Jonas Sjöstedt and Foreign Policy representative Hans Linde. They visited Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist in his office.

After meeting with Palme Center president Jens Orback, the committee visited the grave of Anna Lindh, former Foreign Minister who lost her life in a knife attack, and left flowers with Social Democrat Workers Party MPs.

Media interest was high for the Rojava committee who also met with the Foreign Ministry officials. Written and visual media conducted several interviews with YPJ Commander Nesrin Abdullah in particular.

KURDISTAN FLAG ON MUNICIPALITY BUILDING

Nesrin Abdullah went to the district of Söderhamm where she was met with municipality officials and political party representatives. She shared the latest developments in Rojava in meetings attended by Kurdistan citizens.

Kurdistan flag was raised up to the pole in front of the municipality building for Abdullah’s visit and meetings with the officials. The flag stood until Monday.

Students in Söderhamm gave Abdullah a cheque of 65 thousand Crowns they raised as a support for building a school in Kobanê.

HIGH INTEREST IN THE CONFERENCE IN THE PARLIAMENT

There was a lot of interest in the conference held in the parliament and hosted by the Left Party and the Greens. The conference was attended by MPs from Left Party, Green Party, Social Democrat Workers Party, Christian Democrats Party and Liberal Party, as well as NGO representatives.

Abdullah started her speech in the parliament with the formation of the military organisations of women in Rojava. Stating that the women formed defense units to defend their country after the revolution in Rojava, Abdullah said “It was not our goal to fight, but we had to because we were attacked. We don’t want to fight, we want to build a new social order.”

“We won’t attack anybody even if we had the power to control all the world. But we will defend ourselves at any cost, even if the whole world attacked us. The YPJ organised in this understanding to defend our society and our values,” said Abdullah and stressed that their most important goal is to get the society to a point where people can defend themselves against any threat.

Abdullah said traditional armies were formed for two goals, to fight and to invade other countries, and continued:

“It has been this way for 5 thousand years. Now we want to change this mentality behind forming an army. We believe the army should only be formed for defense. Even in the continued conditions of war, we built academies to educate our members and to avoid past mistakes. It is a strategic mission for us to educate and adorn our members with knowledge.”