Speak to remove or speak to release

Frederike Geerdink

It seems that Presidents Erdoan and Assad are about to talk again. For months, diplomatic trips have been taking place between Moscow, Baghdad, Damascus and Ankara, and apparently not in vain. Kurdistan is of course ignored, but the Kurds want a seat at the table.

It is not only the presidents involved who neglect Kurdistan, but also all the media which talk about the rapprochement between Erdogan and Assad. Most of them mention that for Turkey, the Syrian Kurds are an important factor in Erdogan's desire to make peace with Assad. But the reports only mention that Turkey considers the People's Protection Units (YPG) of the Kurdish armed forces and the multi-ethnic and multi-religious forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) (led by the YPG) as extensions of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK), and that it has bothered Turkey for many years that the SDF are part of the international coalition against IS troops on the ground.

Scary

There is generally no mention of the democratic system that the autonomous administration of northern and eastern Syria, defended by the SDF, has put in place since 2012. Nor of the way in which the Kurds and other groups govern themselves at the local level. This is very frightening for Turkey because this is what the Kurdish movement also wants for Turkey; to undermine the very centralized state that is Turkey.

But there is a deeper level of neglect. They all mention the Kurds, but simply as a factor, without devoting a single sentence to the Kurdish perspective on the situation. It's painful to see, and infuriating too, because it's a huge and important part of the story.

Erdoan and Assad may not have had any relations since the beginning of the war in Syria, but they are still two presidents of the same ilk. They call their opponents terrorists, they lock them up (even if Erdoan’s prisons do not resemble Assad’s dungeons of horror) and, above all, they want to govern their country in a centralized manner, without any autonomy for any group or region. Obey the state, or else…

Opposition

Their current willingness to discuss and reconnect must be seen in this light (and as part of the current dynamics in the Middle East as a whole, but you can read more about that elsewhere). Assad wants a whole Syria without opposition, Erdoan wants a whole Turkey without opposition (the real opposition wants radical change, I mean). They both want to get rid of terrorists – cynically enough, neither of them explicitly names terrorists because that would make rapprochement more difficult: Assad considers Turkish-backed groups terrorists, while Erdoan thinks Assad does not does not treat those he considers properly. be terrorists. But let's not complicate things too much now.

So what do the Kurds want? The Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) (the largest party in the autonomous administration) and the armed forces of the YPG and YPJ (the latter are the women's forces), I mean, and the multi-ethnic SDF? They are not against negotiations between Turkey and Syria, but they are kindly asking for a seat at the negotiating table. This is also what the Kurdish party in Turkey, the Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), is asking for. said.

Painting

This might surprise some people. If Ankara considers them terrorists and wants to annihilate them, and Assad wants to regain control of northeastern Syria, clearly against the interests of freedom-loving people, why would they want to sit at the table? There have been misunderstandings about this before, for example when the SDF said it could become part of the Syrian army. How could a Kurdish armed group become part of the army of Assad, a brutal dictator?

The explanation is that the Kurds really want to solve the problems that have been destroying Syria since 2011. The heart of the problem, they analyze in an ultra-logical way, is the lack of democracy. They are convinced that the war can only end when the Syrian people can take their lives into their own hands. All the Syrian people, freely and without fear. In other words, the brutal state would be dismantled. The Syrian armed forces would then also be transformed, and when the armed forces serve the interests of the people, the SDF can be part of it.

Power

The fact that the PYD wants a seat at the table is not headline news anywhere. It only makes news when state leaders want to sit down and talk, not when a non-state group asks for its say. It is also not considered relevant because the PYD and the SDF will not participate in the negotiations anyway.

Of course, they won't. Because they want to speak to liberate, while Erdoan and Assad want to speak to continue to repress the people, but in a slightly different balance of power. But it is precisely because of this enormous difference between liberation and repression that we must pay attention to it. Aren't journalists supposed to hold authorities accountable and report from the point of view of the people, not those in power?

It would be great if the Kurdish quest for liberation were better known. More people would champion it and it would have a better chance of succeeding.

Frderike Geerdink is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/fgeerdink or subscribe to its famous weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan https://frederikegeerdink.com/expert-kurdistan/.