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How the Syrian opposition can court the
Kurds
26.6.2012
By Denise Natali
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Al Monitor |
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Kurds hold up Syria's pre-Baath and Kurdish flags.
Photo: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images. •
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Denise Natali is the Minerva Fellow at the Institute
for National Strategic Studies INSS, National Defense
University and the author of The Kurdish
Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in Post Gulf
War Iraq.
Read more by the Author
June 26, 2012
One of the missing links to a viable Syrian
opposition is the Kurds. While comprising only 8% of
Syria’s population, they represent the minority
voice needed to help strengthen the Muslim
Brotherhood-based Syrian National Council (SNC).
This is why the SNC recently named a Kurd as its new
leader while the Free Syrian Army is now calling on
its "Kurdish brothers" to join forces against
President Bashar al-Assad. Yet, if the SNC and its
partners want to gain and sustain a Kurdish buy-in,
then they will have to move beyond the anti-Assad
rhetoric and focus on the source of the problem,
regime alternatives the Kurds can trust. At minimum,
this effort will require restructuring the SNC or
creating a real umbrella opposition group that is
inclusive of secular and locally-based leaders and
de-linked from Turkey and its Kurdish problem.
It is a mistake to think that Syrian Kurds are
eschewing the SNC because of uncertainty about the
future. On the contrary, like Christian and Alawite
groups, most are clearly aware of their political
prospects under a Muslim Brotherhood-SNC influenced,
post-Assad government. Repercussions of regime
change on minority groups in the Middle East and the
particular fallout from the revolts in Egypt and
Tunisia have confirmed these fears. Sectarian
conflict in Iraq is another clear reminder for
Syrian minority groups of what is likely to emerge
in a post-Assad state.
Syrian Kurds’ distrust of the SNC also is tied to
ethno-nationalist and cross-border politics. Their
historical trajectory not only is tainted by
exclusionary Ba’athist policies inside Syria, but by
close relations with Turkey’s Kurds and their own
displacements to and from southeastern Turkey. With
the SNC integrally linked to Ankara and the Kurdish
problem in Turkey unresolved after nearly three
decades, many Syrian Kurds see a similar fate under
an SNC-influenced regime. Even those Syrian Kurdish
groups who support Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud
Barzani, now an ally of Ankara , are reticent to
join the SNC.
The SNC is attempting to address these weaknesses.
Replacing its previous leader Burhan Ghalioun, a
Paris-based intellectual with Abdul Bassett Sayda,
with Kurdish academic, and promising to safeguard
Kurdish rights in a post-Assad Syria may appease
Kurdish and other minority groups. Some Kurds from
the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which represents
11 Kurdish groups in Syria, have expressed
willingness to compromise, affirming they do not
seek to divide Syria, but to assure a secular state
that protects Kurdish national identity, gender
equality, and religious freedoms.
Still, Sayda’s appointment is unlikely to be a game
changer for the SNC. Like Ghalioun, Sayda is a
diaspora Kurd based in Europe who is removed from
local politics and with no loyalties on the ground.
He may bring together various, educated expatriate
Syrian communities during his brief three month
tenure, but he will unlikely be able to create the
political pacts necessary to sustain a cohesive
opposition movement or a post-regime transition.
Moreover, Sayda’s appointment does not alter the
fundamental origins and structure of the SNC, which
continues to hold its meetings in Istanbul amidst a
majority of Muslim Brotherhood members, and in the
absence of influential local leaders on the ground.
Instead of merging with the larger Syrian
opposition, Syrian Kurds are attempting to unify and
strengthen their own fragmented movement. The
relatively moderate KNC has recently signed an
agreement with the other main Kurdish opposition
group and PKK affiliate,www.ekurd.net
the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which now calls
itself the "People’s Council." The seven-point
proposal, recently negotiated in Erbil under the
guidance of Iraqi Kurdish parties and signed in the
Syrian Kurdish town of Qamishli, aims to increase
cooperation between the two Syrian Kurdish factions
and cease intra-Kurdish military actions. This
agreement, if honored even in part, could make it
more difficult to incorporate Syrian Kurds into the
SNC or reach a compromise, particularly if the
extremist PYD/PKK is involved.
This is where Turkey’s role is vital. Ankara can
continue to press Barzani to nudge Syrian Kurds to
support the SNC. It also can welcome displaced
Syrians in its refugee camps, assure border
security, and call for international humanitarian
intervention. Yet, if Turkey wants to really shape
Syrian opposition politics and outcomes through the
SNC, and co-opt Syrian Kurds away from the PKK, then
it will have to include a solution to its own
Kurdish problem as part of its strategy.
Appealing to Kurds as fellow Muslims, as the AK
party has done in Turkey will only have partial
success. The real litmus test will be to appease the
SNC’s biggest challengers — secular Kurdish
nationalists. Ankara’s recent promises to expand
Kurdish language in schools, create a parliamentary
committee to address the Kurdish problem and modify
the Turkish constitution are steps in the right
direction. These measures, if implemented and made
to appear believable could help reassure Syrian
Kurds and other minorities that their political
future in the Syrian state could actually improve
after Assad. If not, Syrian Kurds will likely remain
a thorn in opposition politics and a post-Assad
state.
Denise Natali is the Minerva Fellow at the
Institute for National Strategic Studies INSS,
National Defense University and the author of
The Kurdish Quasi-State: Development and
Dependency in Post Gulf War Iraq. The views
expressed are her own and do not reflect the
official policy or position of the National Defense
University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.
government.
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author or news agency,
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