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Kurds and sway
27.1.2012
By Tony Badran
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Now Lebanon |
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Syrian Kurds living in Iraq demonstrate against the
crackdown of the Assad regime on protesters. The
Kurds are likely to wield increasing influence in
Syria. Photo: AFP photo
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January 27, 2012
If there is one group in Syria that embodies the
trans-national currents running through Syrian
society, and which is likely to have increasing
influence in the post-Assad era, it’s the Kurds.
Sitting at the intersection between Turkey, Syria
and Iraq, the Kurdish minority, it is commonly
recognized, will play a critical role in the success
of the Syrian revolution and in the shaping of the
post-Assad order.
It is also known that the Syrian Kurdish political
scene is notoriously fragmented, with the
traditional Kurdish parties harboring misgivings
toward the Arab opposition groups as well as toward
Turkey. These various cleavages have afforded the
Assad regime an opening it sought to exploit.
Early on in the uprising, Bashar al-Assad moved to
neutralize the Kurdish areas. He issued a decree
naturalizing the registered stateless Kurds (the
so-called ajanib, or “foreigners”) and repealed
Decree 49 of 2008, which regulated land use and
ownership in the border regions, and which was
unanimously seen as anti-Kurdish.
Jordi Tejel, an expert on Kurdish affairs at the
Graduate Institute of International and Development
Studies, with whom I spoke by email, agrees that
these concessions were made “preventatively, in
order to hinder or at least minimize Kurdish
participation in the Syrian revolution.”
However, Assad did not fully achieve his objective.
One factor that has consistently frustrated his
efforts has been the Kurdish youth. “From the
beginning,” Tejel commented, “the Kurdish youth has
been active in demonstrations and sit-ins both in
Northern Syria (especially in the Jazira) and in big
cities such as Damascus and Aleppo. Thus, for
example, students arrested at Aleppo University are
mainly Kurds.”
However, with the exception of the Yekiti Party, the
Azadi Party and the Kurdish Future Movement—which,
as Tejel noted to me, supported the revolution from
the outset—the position of the other dozen or so
traditional Kurdish parties remained ambiguous. “As
a result of this,” Tejel added, some Kurdish youth
“established their own revolutionary movements in
Northern Syria. Interestingly, these groups worked
closely together with the rest of the youth movement
across Syria.”
Assad sought to capitalize on this divide as well.
In June, he invited representatives from 12 Kurdish
parties to meet with him in an attempt to coopt
them. They declined—or rather, were forced to. Tejel
explained that the Kurdish “youth protesters openly
stated that they wanted the downfall of the regime
and that the Kurdish parties could not establish a
dialogue with Assad.”
Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an analyst with the
Jamestown Foundation, concurred in an email, adding,
“There is a lot of distrust among Syrian Kurds
towards the Kurdish parties.”
Much like with the Arab opposition, a defining chasm
in the Kurdish scene is the one between the youth
and the traditional elites.
Another part of Assad’s tactic was to reach out to
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliate
in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Suspicions quickly arose that there was a tacit deal
between the regime and the PKK/PYD. Van Wilgenburg
says, “These suspicions are empowered by the
existence of Kurdish schools opened by the PKK, and
the fact that the most important PKK leader [Murat]
Karayilan indicated they would not be part of the
conspiracy against Iran and Syria.”
The rekindling of the PKK’s relationship with the
Assad regime is borne out of necessity, Tejel
asserted—a result of the intense pressure the group
is facing in Iraqi Kurdistan. For Assad, the
alliance offered a way to counter those Kurds, like
the Kurdish Future Movement’s former leader Mashaal
Temo, who were willing to work with the Syrian Arab
opposition.
However, Tejel was quick to add that “this
‘alliance,’ so to speak, is fragile.” For one, as a
result of its questionable posture toward the
regime, the PYD “is now isolated within the Kurdish
arena and its position has become terribly
uncomfortable. The PYD is especially sensitive to
the criticism pouring from the youth.”
Moreover, the PYD’s relations with the Kurdish
National Council—a recently formed coalition of 10
parties dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party
of Syria, a sister organization of Massoud Barzani’s
KDP in Iraq—are frayed. And there were even
allegations that the PKK/PYD may have been complicit
in Mashaal Temo’s murder.
These divisions currently define the traditional
Kurdish political scene. Effectively, the Kurdish
parties are now split into three main blocs: the
Kurdish National Council (KNC), the PYD and The
Union of Kurdish Democratic Forces in Syria—a
coalition formed in December, including primarily
the Kurdish Future Movement. (Outside this framework
of parties are also the various youth gatherings and
local Kurdish coordination committees, some of which
have united in a coalition called Avahi.)
The Kurdish National Council recently moved to
pressure the Arab opposition to recognize Kurdish
rights and demands. Following a major meeting last
week in Erbil, where they sought to formulate a
common platform, the parties of the KNC suspended
their participation in both major opposition
groupings—the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the
NCB.
Instead of seeking concessions from the regime, the
Kurdish parties are now negotiating with the Arab
opposition. In that regard, Iraq’s Masoud Barzani
has assumed a notable role.
Barzani, who had declined an invitation from Assad
to visit Syria, hosted the president of the SNC
Burhan Ghalyoun earlier this month. According to
some reports, Ghalyoun sought Barzani’s mediation to
get the KNC to join the SNC. Negotiations are
apparently ongoing,www.ekurd.net
and the KNC’s secretary general, Abdul Hakim Bashar,
said on Monday that the Kurdish council was awaiting
the SNC’s response to some amendments to their
respective political programs, which could allow for
the two groupings to join forces.
Iraqi Kurdistan is thus emerging as a critical
player in the Syrian arena, and a convergence point
for many of Assad’s opponents, from Turkey to
Lebanon. Even more so than with the Druze, the
politics of the Kurds highlight the impact of
cross-border ethnic ties and the critical role they
will play in forging Syria’s future.
Tony Badran is a research fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.
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