Director General of Kurdistan Region Customs: The government has not received any decision on closin

The Kurdistan Democratic Party forces closed the Semalka border crossing and the Al-Waleed border gate with western Kurdistan on December 16, while the head of the General Directorate of Border Crossings in North and East Syria stated that the Kurdistan Democratic Party closed the crossings without giving any reason or information about that. Meanwhile, the General Directorate of Customs in the Kurdistan Region announced that it had not received any decision to close the border crossings with West Kurdistan.

The KDP closed the border crossings with Western Kurdistan a week ago. The Kurdistan Regional Parliament and the concerned parties in the government also showed their lack of knowledge about the reason for closing the border crossings.

In this context, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament, Sherko Jawdat, spoke to Rojnews about the closure of the border crossings, and said: “We do not know in any way that the crossings were closed and we were not informed of this. This is an important topic and we will discuss and focus on it.”

In the same context, the Director General of Customs in the Kurdistan Region, Samal Abdel Rahman, stated that the government had not received any decision on closing the border crossings.

The head of the General Directorate of Border Crossings in North and East Syria, Rudi Muhammad Amin, confirmed in a press statement in front of the Semalka crossing on December 19 that KDP officials decided to close the Peshkhabur and Al-Walid crossings without informing them of this.

Rudi Muhammad Amin stated that the decision to close the crossing was taken by the administration of Peshkhabur Crossing for various reasons and that the tent was used as an excuse to close the door.

Muhammad Amin drew attention to the movements of the families of the martyrs at the Simalka border gate to receive the bodies of their sons who were martyred in an ambush by KDP militants, and continued, saying: “The mothers of the martyrs repeatedly tried to meet the officials in the administration of the Peshkhabur crossing and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, but they were refused. The Relations Office at Semalka Crossing also sent a letter to them, but without a response from the Peshkhabur Crossing administration.”

In addition, the KDP closed the Peshkhabur crossing from the Kurdistan region twice this year. The first time was on February 3 for five days. The second time was when the crossing was closed on June 22, and sudden decisions were made about who wanted to cross from west to south Kurdistan. Citizens wishing to cross into southern Kurdistan were stopped for hours and required to submit a form containing personal information.