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The West's Darling in Syria

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The West's Darling in Syria Introduction Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik German Institute for International and Security Affairs Comments The West’s Darling in Syria WP Seeking Support, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party Brandishes an Anti-Jihadist Image Khaled Yacoub Oweis S US bombings in 2015 repulsed Islamic State attacks on cities in mostly Kurdish self- rule regions called cantons in northern Syria. The three cantons, which border Turkey, are dominated by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). The party is linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a former client of the Syrian regime and considered a “terrorist” group by the United States, the European Union, and Turkey. At the risk of deepening an Arab Sunni backlash that has fanned radicalization, Washington is set ever more on the prospect of the PYD retaking mostly Arab territory captured by the Islamic State. In line with German reluctance to arm warring sides, Berlin has refrained from giving military aid to the PYD, which is accused of carrying out war crimes. Still, an international effort to rebuild the cantons tied to breaking the PYD’s monopoly on them could help stabilize the area – even more so if Turkey could be brought on board. The Kurds have scored some of the biggest PYD is not calling for outright secession. Its territorial gains in Syria since the outbreak declaration of self-rule and accompanying of revolt against Assad family rule in 2011. “social contract” mix Marxist jargon and a Cooperation with the Assad regime and vague form of popular democracy. The docu- backing from the United States against the ments also emphasize rights for women so-called Islamic State have strengthened and minorities. Underneath the rhetoric, Kurdish militias affiliated with the PYD. power rests with the PYD/YPG and their Advancing into a multi-faceted ethnic and parent organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ tribal landscape, the so-called People’s Pro- Party, whose military command is based in tection Units (YPG) captured Kurdish-major- the Kandil Mountains of Iraq. Senior politi- ity regions near Turkey and Iraq but also cal figures linked to the PKK are also based areas with a significant Arab population. in Turkey. In defiance of Turkey, the PYD set up three In Syria, Kurds constitute around 10 per- self-ruled cantons in 2014 comprising cent of the population, compared with 15 around one-fifth of Syria under the um- percent in Iraq. Apart from Syria’s north, a brella name of “Rojava Self-Ruled Demo- large Kurdish concentration also exists in cratic Administration, Syria” (in Kurdish, Damascus, but many have left – mainly to Rojava means “Western Kurdistan”). The Turkey and Iraq – because of a worsening Khaled Yacoub Oweis is a fellow in the project “The fragmentation of Syria” realized by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) SWP Comments 47 and funded by the German Foreign Office. October 2015 1 economy since the revolt. Not many headed Barzani has thus been left as the main to the cantons. Bombings and incursions by outside player dominating Syria’s Kurdish jihadists into Kurdish areas, as well as forced players, along with the PKK. recruitment into the YPG, which drove thou- sands of youth to flee the cantons, have limited the region’s appeal. Divide and rule During Hafez al-Assad’s rule (1970–2000), the authorities moved thousands of Arab Kurdish politics in Syria tribespeople from Raqqa governorate into The fall of the Ottoman Empire and its a Kurdish-populated area north of Hasakah division by Western powers (1916–1920) city, the provincial capital. The tribesmen deepened ethnic and religious conflicts came from areas slotted to be submerged across the Middle East. Turkish repression in plans for a hydro-electric dam on the drove waves of mainly Christian and Kurd- Euphrates River. Known as the al-Ghamar ish refugees into Syria during and after the Arabs (the Arabs of the flood), they became First World War (1914–1918). The refugees among the staunchest supporters of Assad crossed mostly into Hasakah province, an family rule. The population transfer, which ethnically-mixed area in Syria where the occurred in the 1970s, was typical of the Khabour River, a tributary of the Euphrates, divide-and-rule tactics that have been key to provided water for agriculture. Oil was later keeping Syria in the Assad family’s grip. discovered, raising the economic signifi- A new wave of Kurdish refugees crossed cance of the region, which also borders into Syria to escape Turkish bombardment Iraq. Bowing to a rising current of Arab and the razing of their villages after the chauvinism, in 1962 the Syrian government PKK had launched guerilla warfare against conducted a census that denied citizenship Turkey in 1984. Within the Kurdish com- to 120,000 Kurds living in Hasakah and munity in Turkey, the PKK dealt brutally kept them and their descendents outside with dissent, for example killing teachers mainstream society. who taught Turkish-language curricula. Ending their disenfranchisement became In Syria, the regime allowed the refugees a main demand for Kurdish political par- in but extracted a price. Mohammad Man- ties, the first of which, the Kurdish Demo- soura, a security lieutenant of Assad, is cratic Party in Syria (KDPS), was set up in thought to have made fortunes in the 1980s the 1950s. Known as “Al-Party,” the KDPS and 1990s by running protection rackets was an affiliate of the Kurdish Democratic and taking bribes from Kurdish refugees for Party (KDP) of northern Iraq. The KDP was letting them in. Demographically, the new founded by Mustafa Barzani in 1946, and influx altered the composition of Syria’s later headed by his son Masoud. The Al-Par- northeast and contributed to thousands of ty spawned numerous Kurdish parties in Christian families in Hasakah, who were Syria that mostly deferred to the Barzani better off on average, migrating to the inte- clan or to Jalal Talabani, who became Iraq’s rior of Syria or abroad. Many were driven first president after the US-led invasion that away by what they regarded as pro-Kurdish toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Talabani bias by the regime, which resulted in Kurd- founded his Patriotic Union of Iraq (PUK) ish seizure of their land and unfair com- party in the 1970s in Damascus and petition for resources. had good ties with Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, which helped keep the Kurdish political movement in Syria largely docile. Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds Talabani’s influence over Kurdish politics Assad, the father, whose government was lessened in the last decade because of his embroiled in water and territorial disputes ill health and defections from the PUK. with Ankara, supported the PKK in its war SWP Comments 47 October 2015 2 in Turkey. Similar to Hafez al-Assad’s Baath Muslim, was arrested briefly in 2010 and Party, the PKK revolved around the person- then left Syria for Kandil. But the Assad ality cult of its founder, Abdullah Öcalan, regime kept lines of communications open and dissent was met with violence. In the with the PYD, which Turkey did not mind, 1980s and 1990s, Öcalan lived in Syria and as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sought to improve used Syria and areas in Lebanon’s Bekaa ties with his own country’s Kurds. Valley under Syrian control as military and One unintended consequence of the im- propaganda bases. provement in Syrian-Turkish relations was Content that the PKK had fallen under related to Turkey scrapping visa require- the orbit of the Syrian regime, Hafez al-Assad ments for Syrian nationals. Kurds in Syria did little to improve the mass lot of Syria’s were able to travel and see their relatives Kurdish population. The elder Assad upheld in Turkey, often for the first time, which the 1962 census and pursued an “Arabiza- helped rekindle ties between Kurds in the tion” policy that deepened bans on Kurdish two countries. It also became easier for the language and culture, including celebrat- people in northern Syria to buy Turkish ing the Nowruz festival. mobile phone lines and escape the eaves- dropping of the Assad secret police. Un- monitored cell phones became instrumen- Political wind turns against PKK tal in organizing protests. Under the threat of a Turkish invasion in 1998, Hafez al-Assad expelled Öcalan and submitted to Turkish demands dictated to Kurdish uprising and aftermath Syrian officials at a meeting in the Turkish A crackdown on the Kurdish movement city of Adana to stop supporting the PKK. across the board followed a grassroots Kurd- The Adana agreement also forced the Syrian ish uprising in 2004, which was crushed government to designate the PKK as a ter- after Assad’s forces killed 30 civilians. Provo- rorist organization – the same official desig- cation by Assad loyalists of Kurdish spec- nation of the PKK in Turkey, Europe, and tators at a football match in Qamishli the United States. The PKK tried to deflect apparently triggered the riots. It brought pressure in the following years by establish- to the surface Kurdish frustration about dis- ing sister organizations in Iran, Turkey, and enfranchisement, poverty, and the regime’s Syria (the PYD). By then, Bashar al-Assad readiness to sacrifice the Kurds for better had inherited power. The younger Assad relations with Turkey. But the PYD and tra- tolerated the PYD when it was set up in ditional Kurdish parties coordinated with 2003, although Syrian authorities had the Assad regime to calm the Kurdish street started handing over former PKK guerrillas in return for promises to resolve the issue to Turkey as part of newly-found security of disenfranchisement arising from the cooperation with Ankara. 1962 census.
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