Syrian Kurds Should Not be Left at the Mercy of Turks

By Manish Rai

Since Assad’s regime fell in early December, clashes have intensified in northern Syria between the US-backed Kurdish fighters and the Turkish proxy force Syrian National Army (SNA). Following the regime change in Syria, Turkey has become the most important regional actor in the country. By providing support for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army Ankara has been consolidating its power over Syria. Turks think that this is the right time to get rid of the small statelet of Syrian Kurds often referred to as Rojava sitting next to its borders. The Kurdish people, often referred to as the largest stateless ethnic group in the world, have faced centuries of marginalization and persecution. Scattered across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, the Kurds share a cultural, linguistic, and historical bond but remain divided by political borders imposed after World War I. In Syria, their plight has been particularly stark with decades of oppression and neglect under the Arab nationalist Baath regime. Kurds in Syria have long been treated as second-class citizens. Stripped of citizenship rights in the 1960s, many were rendered stateless and denied access to education, property ownership, and other fundamental rights. Syrian Kurds, who make up about 10-15% of the population, had been more suppressed and less visible than Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.

From the beginning of the Syrian war, the main Kurdish political party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) chose to side with neither Assad nor the anti-regime opposition groups and instead sought to secure its position in the north. In 2012 it unilaterally declared the establishment of an autonomous region called Rojava (Western Kurdistan), formed of three territorially separate cantons: Afrin, Kobane, and Manbij. Turkey’s regular military interventions endangered the PYD’s position in North and North-East Syria, but the latter continued to maintain an efficient and well-organized administration even under dire situations, with a commitment to bottom-up democracy, gender equality, and minority rights. This is exceptional in the Middle East, where hopes for democracy have been largely crushed since the Arab Spring. Currently, this Kurdish project in Syria is fighting for its survival as they face Turkish mercenary groups like SNA and direct Turkish attacks in the form of artillery shelling and airstrikes. Turkey’s key objective in Syria is simple: liquidating multiethnic, Kurdish-led governance along its border, and pushing the Kurdish population back into the Syrian desert by establishing a twenty-mile-deep “safe zone.” There, it will also resettle Syrian refugees in formerly Kurdish settlements as a way of both satisfying domestic anti-refugee sentiment and entrenching ethnic change along its border.

Turkey has been continuously attacking not only Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases but generally every kind of Kurdish structure in its vicinity. Syrian Kurds have been regularly targeted by Turkey and its allied militias. Through regular shelling of Kurdish positions and military campaigns like Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch. Syrian Kurds are on top of the Turkish hit list as they are the major obstacle in Ankara’s expansionist policies in Syria. Turkey justifies its fierce hostility towards Kurdish forces in Syria by arguing that Kurdish-controlled regions in northern Syria are terrorist dens and shelters for the outlawed PKK which has launched a guerrilla campaign against Turks since 1984. But Turks failed to provide any evidence that Kurds have launched any terror attacks against Turkey from Syria. The real motive behind these kinds of onslaughts launched by Turkey is to drive out the Kurds from these areas and get the pro-Turkish population settled there. It is evident from the fact that in its previous operation in Afrin, Turkey engaged not in counter-terror, but in ethnic cleansing. In its multiple reports, Amnesty International has reported that Turkish military forces and their allied armed groups. Have displayed a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians, during the offensive into northeast Syria.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main fighting force of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) since the beginning has been an important ally of the West in the fight against ISIS. They have done the bulk of the fighting on the ground against ISIS. It should be remembered that Syrian Kurds are still holding thousands of ISIS operatives in the prisons controlled and guarded by them. The new regime in Damascus led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham offers to take over guard duty at Al-Hol prison camp, where thousands of Islamic State fighters and their families remain under guard, is ridiculous, it’s equivalent of a hunter offering to guard its prey. The situation would be worse, however, as the thousands of Islamic State fighters would spread out not only across Syria and the Middle East but also into Europe with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan happily extorting concessions from weak European and NATO leaders in exchange for promises not to turn on the wave of illegal immigration.

Ankara’s neo-Ottoman approach in the region has been clearly visible through its engagement in the Syrian conflict after 2011. All of Turkey’s strategic targets and demands since the start of the Syrian conflict like the ousting of the Assad regime, preventing a Kurdish autonomous region, declaration of a no-fly zone, creating a buffer zone along the eastern part of Euphrates River, and protecting radical Islamist groups in Idlib, have been a part of this approach. But Syrian Kurds who are a beacon of liberalism and democracy in the troublesome Middle East should not be allowed to fall prey to the expansionist policies of Turks if this valuable ally of the United States is not provided with the required assistance in time. The West will lose its credibility as a reliable ally.