Politics
Erdogan's dilemma regarding Syria's Kurdish population
What will happen to the Kurds, by far the largest minority in Syria, with around two million people?
The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, has brought the Kurds to the forefront of regional politics. Faced with the conquering military advance of ISIS, Syrian government forces abandoned many areas occupied by the Kurds in the northeast of the country, leaving the Kurds to administer them.
A U.S.-led coalition determined to defeat ISIS allied itself with the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga militia, which proved a remarkable success. It took less than two years to reconquer territory held by ISIS; In doing so, the Kurdish-occupied region of northeastern Syria, known as Rojava, gained de facto autonomy.
The capture by Kurdish forces of the commune of Manbij from ISIS on August 12, 2016 produced a strip of territory largely controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Arab and Kurdish militias, along the border southern Turkey. This area was closely adjacent to the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, the Kurdish-populated area granted autonomy in the 2005 Iraqi constitution.
Thus, much to the dismay of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the possibility of a united autonomous Kurdistan stretching across the northern borders of Syria and Iraq seemed to be emerging.
Erdogan has always viewed the People's Protection Units (YPG), the SDF's dominant force, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group widely designated as a terrorist organization.
Then, in 2016, Erdogan launched Operation Euphrates Shield, capturing an area of northern Syria from Jarabulus to al-Bab. He followed this operation two years later with Operation Olive Branch in which he invaded Afrin.
In 2019, after the United States announced its withdrawal from parts of northern Syria, it launched Operation Peace Spring, establishing a “safe zone” on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border. He intended to use it to resettle Syrian refugees currently in Türkiye.
Erdogan has more or less annexed all the areas he invaded. They are now governed by Turkish-backed local councils, use the Turkish lira as their currency, and are heavily influenced by Turkish infrastructure projects, including schools, hospitals, and post offices.
TURKEY, a long-time supporter of the rebel movement that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad – Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham – now has strong political influence with its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani. Erdogan undoubtedly hopes to use it to control his eternal Kurdish problem by continuing to occupy the parts of Syria that he has invaded. But despite his dominant political position in post-Assad Syria, it is far from certain that he will succeed.
Julani's intentions regarding minorities in general, and the Kurds in particular, remain very unclear. Since the fall of the Assad regime, Julani has presented a moderate face to the world, constantly declaring that he intends to be as inclusive as possible in establishing Syria's new governance.
In short, he might not approve of Turkey's continued occupation of large areas of sovereign Syria. Furthermore, he has repeatedly declared that the Kurds are “part of the Syrian homeland,” while assuring the nation that “there will be no injustice.”
If there is any ethnic group that deserves justice, it is the Kurds.
THOUSANDS of years ago, a proud, independent nation lived and thrived on its own territory in the heart of the Middle East. Subjected to numerous foreign invasions, this ethnically distinct people refused to integrate with their various conquerors and retained their own culture.
At the start of World War I, their country was only a small part of the Ottoman Empire. In shaping the future Middle East after the war, the Allied Powers, particularly Britain, promised to act as guarantors of that people's freedom. This promise was later broken.
Although this sounds like the history of the Jewish people, it is in fact the outline of the long, convoluted and unresolved history of the Kurds.
The approximately 35 million Kurds constitute the largest stateless nation in the world. Historically, they inhabited a distinct geographical area flanked by mountain ranges, formerly called Kurdistan. No such location is depicted on current maps, as the former Kurdistan now falls within the sovereign space of four distinct states: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Most Kurds – around 25 million – live within Turkey's borders. There are 2 million in Syria, while in Iraq, the 5 million Kurds have developed a quasi-autonomous state. Nearly 7 million Kurds are trapped by Iran's extremist Shiite regime.
The Treaty of Sèvres, marking the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, stipulated that a referendum would decide the question of the homeland of Kurdistan. This referendum never took place and the Treaty of Sèvres itself was rendered null and void in 1922 by the creation of the Turkish Republic under Kemal Atatürk.
The Treaty of Lausanne followed, giving control of what was then Kurdistan to the new republic. With the stroke of a colonial pen, more than 20 million Kurds were declared Turks.
Kurdish autonomy gained its greatest recognition in the 2005 Iraqi constitution, which established the Kurdistan Region as a federal entity within Iraq, with its own local government and legal framework.
The Kurds of Syria are well aware of this. They will also not forget that something similar was offered to them by the Assad regime. In March 2015, Syria's then-information minister announced that the government was considering recognizing Kurdish autonomy “within the framework of the law and the constitution.”
In September 2017, Syria's then foreign minister said Damascus would consider granting the Kurds greater autonomy once ISIS was defeated. Events overtook these aspirations, and nothing of the sort came to fruition. But they could provide Julani with a model for future accommodation with the Kurds as part of the establishment of a unified and restored Syrian state.
Although Erdogan may deplore the consequences on the Turkish domestic political scene, he could nevertheless see an autonomous Kurdish region recognized in a new Syrian constitution – and even, in time, some form of alliance between this region and the region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.
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