ever since the pkk declared a cease-fire in march. negotiations are still ongoing, but reaching a deal is not easy. it is not clear, for example, what will happen to one very special group involved in the conflict. tens of thousands of paramilitary kurdish fighters hired by ankara to help in the struggle against pkk guerrillas. many so-called village guards believe their job is far from over. >> he has been watching over this village with its thousand residence for 20 years. they called themselves village guards. kurdish paramilitaries fighting against the kurdish separatists, the pkk. the pkk has announced it will withdraw from turkey, but nobody here at this post believes peace will come. association officials are visiting the guards to sound out their mood. would they be willing to give up their weapons? >> if the government takes this weapon away from the, i will go get one of my own because i do not feel safe at all -- if the government takes this weapon away from me. a few days ago, down the road, they received a demand from the

ever since the pkk declared a cease-fire in march. negotiations are still ongoing, but reaching a deal is not easy. it is not clear, for example, what will happen to one very special group involved in the conflict. tens of thousands of paramilitary kurdish fighters hired by ankara to help in the struggle against pkk guerrillas. many so-called village guards believe their job is far from over. >> he has been watching over this village with its thousand residence for 20 years. they called themselves village guards. kurdish paramilitaries fighting against the kurdish separatists, the pkk. the pkk has announced it will withdraw from turkey, but nobody here at this post believes peace will come. association officials are visiting the guards to sound out their mood. would they be willing to give up their weapons? >> if the government takes this weapon away from the, i will go get one of my own because i do not feel safe at all -- if the government takes this weapon away from me. a few days ago, down the road, they received a demand from the

fighters with the pkk have been withdrawing from turkey and heading to their basis in northern iraq. it's part of a truce with the turkey government which they've been fighting for for many years. >> in this remote mountainous landscape, these fighters are in control. they are the people's defense force or the military wing of the curgstan workers party known as the pkk. they've been fighting the turkey army for kurdish rights and autonomy for 30 years. and in this region, no one has power over these fighters except for one man. hey call him abol. many of these young men and women have never met him. yet, his influence is strongly felt. he's not only a man but an idol, a leader. the kurdish people were oppressed and their existence denied by the turkish state. he renewed the kurdish movement and revived it. it's him that made them recognize this and feel their identity. >> turkey, the e.u. and the u.s. consider the p.k.k. a terrorist group and some have accused most of its fighters of being brain washed by their leader. but these rebels say they joined the group on their own will aft

it has fought long struggle against the pkk, kurdish group that americans support, and again with americanhing out to try to resolve that with great success in the past year. and turkey is an island of stability in a middle east with iran, iraq, and syria, to one or another degree, either defying the west in the case of syria and iran, and in the case of iraq and syria, to one or another degree facing a tremendous internal upset. so given the importance of this region as an energy and communications hundred for all of eurasian, it's important to keep good relations with turkey which is a democratic state, closely ail lied withç the european union in a customs union, and is a real success story. how this will affect it is something we're all trying to figure out right now. >> shepard: mr. ambassador, thank you so much. appreciate you guidance.ç we'll lean on you in the days ahead. john bussey is with us again. we can't understate just as the ambassador so rightly pointed out, the importance of this nation, not only to the united states and western interests but to the stability in the mid

weapons and conventional stockpiles of weapons don't fall in the hands of the al qaeda organizations, pkk terrorist groups are up in the north. we need to make sure that those groups don't become armed with something that causes a world wide crisis. >> i want to turn you now to the nsa case. today you talked about the connections possibly with china and snowden, edward snowden's ties would be scrubbed. do you have any reason to believe he is in chinese protective custody? >> if you think about it here is a guy who packed up a bunch of sensitive materials and tried to access material that was out of the bounds of his responsibility, packed it all up and headed to china to make an announcement that he was a whistle blower. he is no whistle blower. he gives whistle blowers a bad name. these folks come to congress where we can fix these problems. we believe now he is reporting in china media about the united states possibly spying on china. that is not whistle blowing. that is betraying your country. there is a lot of interest that we have seen that just don't pass the smell test. >> was he i

erdogan recently reached out to the pkk, which is the rebel group that supports basically their rebelement. he's considering releasing one of their leaders from jail. i think there's almost an attempt at a reproach to actually leverage them in the larger regional calculus relating to the iranians and iraqis. so i think, you know, erdogan is clearly looking over the horizon at how to maintain and increase their own influence in the region. so that's very weis. at the same time, as you kind of point out here, there's a great deal of instability in his own backyard. let me point out something. maybe richard can comment on this. one of the things i'm aware of is that within the police force, although it's loyal to erdogan, they're having their own internal stressors. they've had police officers kill themselves over not wanting to have to -- i think there's three policemen who have committed suicide, and they're having to pull in policemen from other parts of the country. as much as i think erdogan is looking over the horizon at larger issues, trying to work with us on syria, i think that

the pkk flag flies in some of these villages. but they have an agreement on the ground. there's a lot of very practical agreements that seem to fly in the face. certain parts of the country, electricity flows. as an agreement between rebels and the government. so for the kurds, that local agreement stands. they are allowed to run their own affairs. but when the next governmengovernmen ts of syria fits in damascus, whoever that is, then that wil would be a question that has to be addressed, how much autonomy is granted to i certainly don't hear kurds calling for a separate state within syria, but they will absolutely demand a high degree of autonomy. >> thank you, ian. next for you, dave. what can be done to prevent and/or and spillover violence into series of neighboring states? part two, what might change the calculus of russia and/or china moving to support assad to a greater degree than they already have? is there any point where they might agree to facilitate a transition of leadership? if so, where might that point be? and third, how does the instability in syria ch

you have every flavor of terrorist in syria now that we can imagine from al qaeda to hamas to pkk elementsow in syria. that's dangerous, and all of the refugee problems it causes putting prressure on jordan, th very structure of lebanon is in doubt now, the southern border of turkey is under immense pressure with refugees, israel is under a bit of pressure. we have to have a solution that regains the confidence of the opposition in the united states and the arab league in any hope we might have of having a negotiated peace settlement. if we don't get that credibility back, womp, we're toast. this thing is going to spiral out of control and we will be passive observers to one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in recent time. >> do you want the u.s. to provide arms to the rebels? do you want the u.s. to engage in a no-fly zone over syria? what do you want the obama administration to approve? >> what i have called for early on -- we have unique capabilitieso this doesn't mean 1 1 zr w 101 airborne or -- a, leadership to the arab league, which by the way, they're asking for on providing c

you seal the -- both in terms of hard and shift -- soft power and the pkk present. now, why did this all matter to americans? like, many people pointed to a number of polls that indicate the americans do not want to intervene inside of syria. there are different responses about what the intervention might look like but generated a lot of skepticism for various reasons, having to do for the reason for our involvement in iraq, afghanistan, finance and so on. i think the biggest that i see strategic threat that is emerging out of all of this has to do -- took me back to my original discussions with policymakers when i came do washington five years ago, when i had to leave syria. that is, location, location, location. for the first two years of the obama administration, we engaged the regime of the president not because we like him or his behavior was good. actually it was awful, but it was based on the idea that syria was very important not only in signing a peace treaty with israel and perhaps moving away from iran but also because of syria's geographic location. does

d., and the local pkk also present in kurdish areas. now why does this all matter to americans?any people have pointed to a number of polls which indicate most americans do not want to intervene inside of syria. there are different responses about what the intervention might look like but generally there's a lot of skepticism for various reasons having to do with the recent iraq our involvement in iraq or afghanistan, finances and so on. i think that the biggest that i see strategic threat that is emerging out of all of this really took me back to my original discussions with policymakers when i came to washington about five years ago when i had to leave syria. and that is location, location, location. for the first two years of the obama administration we engaged the regime of president bashar al-assad not because they liked him, not because it's the behavior was particularly good, actually it was awful but it was based on the idea that syria was important not only in signing a peace treaty with israel but also because of serious geographic location. it doesn't have a lot of oi

well as soft power reaching out to the syrian population and then we have the local variant of the pkk. why is this all matter to mostcans americans do not want intervene inside of syria. there are different responses about what an intervention might look like. generally there is a lot of skepticism. there is the recent iraq involvement or afghanistan, finances, and so one. i think the biggest strategic threat emerging out of all of this really took me back to my original discussions with policymakers when i came to washington five years ago. that is location, location, location. thethe force two years of obama administration, we engaged the regime not because we like him, not because his behavior was particularly good, but based on the idea that syria was very important and not only signing a bute treaty with israel also because of serious geographic location. it does not have a lot of oil. apple were very friendly. -- people were very friendly. we did not have a lot of u.s. interest to be fair. we had a lot of interest in the countries that surround it serious, israel, jordan, iraq,

the decades-long conflict between kurdish separatist group the pkk and the turkish government appears as though it mi