Another nail has been struck in the proverbial coffin of old Syria—which emerged as a united entity, following the end of First World War and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, until the eruption of the Syrian uprising in 2011—when last week Kurdish groups announced the establishment a federal system in regions under their control in northern Syria. They comprise three enclaves bordering Turkey: Afrin and Kobane (Ayn Al Arab) in Aleppo province and Jazira in Hassakeh. In addition to a Kurdish majority these regions are inhabited by Arabs and Turkmen as well.
While the declaration referred to a “federal government”, some signatories dismissed intentions to cede from Syria. The draft also reminded observers of the path that Iraq Kurdistan had taken to arrive at full autonomy years later. It is no wonder that the move was also backed by leaders of Iraq Kurdistan.
It was perhaps inevitable that Syria’s Kurds will attempt such a move—they had declared an autonomous system in these areas in 2013—amidst the geopolitical chaos that has beset Syria in the last five years. They had not taken sides in the uprising against the regime, but quickly mobilized to rid their region from Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) terrorists when the latter moved into areas vacated by government forces. Since the battle to free Kobane from Daesh, between September 2014 and January 2015, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military arm the Popular Protection Units (YPG) have become a key player and a major western ally both in the fight against Daesh and as part of a mainly Arab-Kurdish coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is part of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) led by dissident Haitham Manaa.
But the move has been rejected by the Damascus regime, the Riyadh based Supreme Commission for Negotiations, Manaa’s SDC, the United States and Turkey. It will sound alarm bells in Tehran and Baghdad, which view any attempt by the Kurds to cede with suspicion and hostility.
The Treaty of Lausanne, which defined the borders of the modern Turkish Republic in return for Ankara’s giving up claims to the remainder of the Ottoman Empire, failed to allocate a state to the region’s Kurdish population. Instead their territory was divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. For decades these countries had crushed Kurdish nationalist movements. Today they are an ethnic group of about 28 million.
They had rebelled against central governments in Baghdad and Ankara for years, often being subjugated through brutal force. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was accused of killing and injuring thousands in Halabja in 1988 by using chemical agents. And since the late 1970s, successive Turkish governments have waged war against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which had called for cultural and political rights and self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey.
Political fortunes for Iraqi Kurds changed in the wake of the first Gulf War in 1990 when the US enforced a no-fly zone and offered military protection. Iraqi Kurdistan enjoyed self-rule for years and later, following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the adoption of a federal constitution on became fully autonomous. And recently Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani announced that “the time has come for world leaders to rethink the boundaries of the Middle East and for the Kurds to have a state of their own in the region.” He said that time was ripe to hold a referendum on an independent Kurdistan.
The timing of Syria’s Kurdish move is vital. It comes as long and unpredictable negotiations over Syria’s future kick-off in Geneva. It coincides with US Secretary of State John Kerry’s talk about a plan B for Syria, if peace talks collapse, and a Russian call for a federal solution in the war-torn country. While all regional and international players in the Syrian conflict, in addition to UN Security Council resolutions, have underlined the necessity for preserving the territorial integrity of Syria, it is unrealistic to discount a federal future for Syria, a multi-ethnic and religiously diverse country.
The Russian military intervention last September has salvaged the Damascus regime and enabled its forces to control territories defined by pundits as “useful Syria”; a region stretching from Damascus to the coastal plains of Latakia, which is the stronghold of the country’s Alawite minority. Already the intervention of Daesh and the war between government forces, backed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah forces, and Sunni militias has redrawn ethnic, religious and sectarian lines in Syria. A federal system may turn out to be the only practical solution to a complicated conflict. In this case Syria’s Kurds have made a pre-emptive move in anticipation of what is coming.
But such scenario will not be easy to maintain. Turkey, which had ended a two-year truce with the PKK last November, has found itself engaged in open war against Kurdish rebel positions inside Turkey and in Syria and Iraq. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plan to create a safe zone along Turkey’s borders with Syria, ultimately to prevent the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish enclave there, has been derailed. Erdogan will continue the fight to prevent additional Kurdish gains. For him all Kurdish nationalist movements, on both sides of the border, are either traitor or terrorist.
But while the US has said that it will not recognize the new federal system in northern Syria, it will be impossible for it to endanger its alliance with the YPG, which has proven effective in fighting and defeating Daesh. In addition to inner rivalries and infighting, the Kurds will face challenges from other ethnic groups in the new federal system. But their best hope is that a process for the reconfiguration of Syria has already begun and that they will be the first to claim its rewards.
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
