SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — The son of an assassinated Kurdish opposition leader in Syria said Sunday that his father’s death would encourage more Kurds to protest against the regime there.
Faris Tammo called on Syrian Kurdish groups to take a more active role in the country’s nearly 7-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.
“The killing of my father will encourage the Syrian Kurds to demand their freedom and rights,” said Tammo. He spoke to The Associated Press in a telephone interview Sunday from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
His father, Mashaal Tammo, a charismatic Kurdish opposition figure, was assassinated last week by masked men who burst into his apartment and shot him.
More than 50,000 mourners marched through Qamishili, the capital of Syria’s Kurdish heartland, in a funeral procession for the assassinated Kurdish leader. The outpouring marked the largest turnout in the Kurdish northeast since the start of the uprising against Assad’s autocratic regime.
Kurds have taken part in peaceful demonstrations, but Tammo’s killing could spark a wider, more aggressive uprising by the country’s Kurdish minority similar to the rebellion seen in other Syrian cities. Kurds make up 15 percent of Syria’s 23 million people and have long complained of discrimination.
Tammo has been living in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region since fleeing Syria in 2008, when his father was arrested. He said he had expected that his father would die “sooner or later” at the hands of Syrian security forces.
The Syrian government has denied any involvement in the activist’s death. On Sunday, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem described Tammo as a martyr and blamed terrorists for his death, saying the Kurdish leader stood against any foreign intervention in Syria.
Tammo said his father’s death will encourage Kurds to intensify their anti-government activities in the future.
“I hope that the death of my father will encourage the Kurdish parties to join ranks and take more practical steps to support the revolution in Syria. Our message is that the revolution should continue with or without Mashaal. … The struggle will continue until the dictatorship is removed in Syria,” he said.
Tammo said he would not return to Syria unless the leadership changes.
In April, Assad said he would grant citizenship to stateless Kurds in eastern Syria in an attempt to address some of their grievances in the face of the swelling anti-government uprising that began the month before. However, although citizenship has been given to thousands of Kurds, many are still stateless and the promise of citizenship has not quelled all of their complaints.
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