Bashar al-Assad’s other problem: Peter Fragiskatos on Syrian Kurds

Source National Post via eKurd

"In 1962, an estimated 120,000 Kurds suspected of crossing into Syria illegally from Turkey and Iraq had their citizenship revoked. This group, along with their descendants, was given the status of “ajanib” or “foreigner.” While many did enter from outside — they were anxious to flee unrest in their own communities — Kurds who had been born and raised in Syria and whose families had resided in the country for hundreds of years also lost their citizenship.

The results for the ajanib were devastating. They could not purchase property, businesses or land and were excluded from a range of professions including engineering, medicine and law. They were even prevented from accessing state hospitals. Leaving was not an option since they were not permitted a passport. In a cynical move designed to quell unrest, Bashar promised to reverse the situation and restore citizenship shortly after mass protests began in March 2011, but most are still classified as ajanib — a number hovering around 300,000." writes Peter Fragiskatos


Read the full article Bashar al-Assad’s other problem: Peter Fragiskatos on Syrian Kurds

Saif Badrakhan - Representative of KNK speaks to Swana Radio

Streaming at http://archive.kpfk.org/index.php?shokey=rintifada and available on audio archive for 90 days

Originally Broadcast Wednesday, September, 5th 2012, 2:30-3:00 PM KPFK/Pacifica Radio 90.7 fm, Los Angeles

Produced by Nyma Ardalan - SWANA (South and West Asia and North Africa) Collective, KPFK

Note. Kongra Netewia Kurdistan (KNK)- Kurdistan National Congress is the largest Kurdish congress in Exile it includes 32 Kurdish political parties and organisations

Syria: The Kurdish Wild Card

Source: Truth Dig

"That incident symbolizes the complexities facing Kurds, an ethnic minority making up an estimated 10 to 15 percent of Syria’s population of 22 million. Kurds face discrimination and repression under Assad. But when they took up arms against the Syrian regime, both Turkey and the United States became wary."- Reese Erlich

Read the full article Syria: The Kurdish Wild Card

A tough liberation for Syria’s Kurds

By Maria Fantappie, Special to CNN

While the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are determined to hold onto Aleppo, they’ve already reportedly abandoned some of their positions north of the city, in Syria’s Kurdish populated regions. Yet the retreat of Syrian troops may not bring the liberation that Syrian Kurds have long desired. Now more than ever, Syrian Kurds are caught between the ambitions of their fellow Kurdish parties in neighboring Iraq and Turkey, and the strategies of a Syrian regime struggling to survive.

Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) controls most of Syria’s Kurdish populated areas under the mantle of its Syrian branch, the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan hold the reins of Syrian Kurdish politics, specifically, 15 Syrian-Kurdish parties under the umbrella of the Kurdish National Council (KNC). While the PKK aims to turn Kurdish Syria into a strategic front to combat Turkey, Iraqi Kurds plan the foundation a Kurdish Syrian region under their sway. But even if the regime falls, Syrian Kurds might have a long road ahead to secure their own freedom.

Last month, the Syrian regime fought some of its most ferocious battles to survive, but their retreat from Kurdish populated areas was surprisingly smooth. Al-Assad’s forces retreated only to leave PYD members in their posts. Kurdish Syrian parties agreed to jointly govern the areas, however, the PYD has largely reneged on power-sharing. The longer the regime clings onto power, the further al-Assad’s forces will retreat and the more the PYD could advance, further stoking Turkish fears. In addition, A PKK expansion might eventually work in favor of Iraqi Kurdish interests – under pressure from the PKK expansion, Iraqi Kurds can compel the Syrian opposition to accept the KNC demands as the regime’s demise draws near, pushing ahead their project of a Kurdish Syrian region in a post-al-Assad Syria.

Regardless, the PYD is expanding into northern Syria at an unprecedented rate. Less than two years ago, it could claim only a few offices in the country. Today, its flag flies throughout the Syrian-Turkish frontier region, from northwest ‘Afrin in Turkey to the north-western corner of Syria, ‘Ayn Diwar, and the Aleppo Kurdish quarters. While the PYD already possessed weapons prior the revolution, the evacuation of Syrian forces from Kurdish Syria has left PYD members with their arms and permission to raise checkpoints inside and outside the cities they have entered. As it has expanded, the PYD has organized local elections, opened cultural centers, and recently held the party’s fifth congress.

Al-Assad has also benefited from the PYD’s expansion. The party has often stood in for the regime to repress pro-revolutionary activities. It has also suppressed other Kurdish parties in its quest to consolidate its own power base. Militarily, being armed and being Kurdish, the PYD acts as an effective buffer against the advancement of the Free Syrian Army into any Kurdish populated areas of the country. Indeed, the Free Syrian Army has no way of entering the Kurdish quarters of Aleppo or advancing into Kurdish regions along Syria’s Turkish borders so long as they remain under the control of a Kurdish force.

Thus, the withdrawal of Syrian forces was in the interest of both the PYD and the regime itself. For regime forces, the decision to retreat was a strategic calculation. Syrian forces withdrew without losing control and saved its forces for struggles elsewhere. And a fractured Syrian regime still clinging to power is ideal for PKK ambitions. The more the al-Assad regime employs its forces aggressively across Syria,www.ekurd.net the more it’s likely to leave Kurdish areas in the hands of the PYD, enabling the latter to gain exclusive control of the Syrian-Turkish border area. Only Iraqi Kurds can alter this trajectory and challenge the PYD in Syria. Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces have reportedly been training Kurdish defectors of the Syrian army near the Iraqi-Syrian borders, just a few kilometers from the PYD’s checkpoints in Syria. Iraqi trained Kurdish divisions are already strategically positioned in Iraq’s Zammar, a strategic gateway into al-Hasakah Syria.

Many fear a confrontation that pits Kurds against each other. But this remains a distant prospect. Despite having competing agendas, the PKK and Iraqi Kurds need each other to fulfill their respective agendas.

Iraqi Kurds can capitalize on the threat of a PKK expansion to extract concessions in a post-Assad Syria. Confronted with the PKK’s expansion, the KNC could exert pressure on Turkey and the Syrian opposition to resolve Syria’s Kurdish issue under terms similar to the Iraqi Kurdish model of decentralization or even federalism. Only when these terms are accepted would Iraqi Kurdish leaders send armed and trained Kurdish Syrian divisions to join the Free Syrian Army, which could then enter Kurdish Syria as liberators and compel the PYD to rescind its monopoly.

The PYD needs the KNC as the sole body representing Kurds in the negotiations with Syria's opposition. As the fall of the regime draws near, the PYD might increasingly compromise with the KNC if it wishes to survive in a future Syria. The party can temporarily gain popularity providing Syrian Kurds with services, but it has no chance of consolidating its power base because it lacks the recognition it needs to represent and negotiate Syrian Kurdish demands. More importantly, the PYD has gambled its future on concessions from the Syrian regime and in this sense, may have already lost. The PYD may strive to build an aura of Kurdish “liberator,” after having expanded through regime concessions, and conducted several operations against Syrian Kurdish.

Only those who carry the banners of the revolution will become the future rulers of Syria’s Kurds.

In an eventual post-al-Assad Syria, the PYD may be compelled to alter its plan and negotiate to pull out from most of the Kurdish areas in exchange for maintaining some armed presence along Syria’s Turkish borders. On the other hand, Iraqi Kurds may determine the fate of Syria’s Kurds as Iraqi-trained Syrian Kurdish forces attempt to bear the flag of liberation and the KNC negotiates over the status of Kurds.

Ultimately, even if the collapse of the Syrian regime does come soon, full political representation for Syria’s Kurds still remains a distant prospect.

CNN Editor's note: Maria Fantappie is a Visiting Scholar at Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. The views expressed are her own.

Turkey’s Syria split

Source: CNN

Opponents of this policy believe that Ankara’s policies could usher in a dramatic collapse of the al-Assad regime that could be taken advantage of by Syrian Kurdish groups pushing for an independent Kurdish state. Such groups also fear that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that has waged a violent campaign against Turkey for decades, could take advantage of the post-al-Assad vacuum to establish itself firmly inside Syria.

But even some core AKP members seem to disagree with policies that could precipitate al-Assad’s downfall. Take, for instance, the small group of pro-Tehran AKP politicians who are known to have sympathies for Iran. This group certainly doesn’t relish the prospect of Ankara becoming embroiled in a proxy war against Iran in Syria, with Tehran standing behind the al-Assad regime and Turkey supporting the opposition.

Read the full article Turkey’s Syria split

Why Turkey Should Woo the PKK and Syria's Kurds

Hoshank Awsi - Al-Monitor

The Turks have returned to their old/new threats, refusing to permit the "presence of terrorists" on their southern border — the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), to be precise.

Turkey knows that the PKK is in Istanbul, Ankara and all Kurdish cities in the southeast of the country. It knows that the PKK is in the heart of the Turkish Parliament and that this party's fighters, cadres and political and cultural institutions are all over the Turkish mountains, villages, cities and prisons.

Moreover, Turkey knows that the PKK fighters are located on the eastern (Iranian Kurdistan) and southeastern borders (Iraqi Kurdistan). If Turkey is afraid of the "terrorists" risk, then it must declare war on three neighboring countries. It also has to further engage in war against the Kurds of Turkey in the Kurdish and Turkish mountains and cities.

The Turkish arguments and justifications that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is advancing regarding the possibility of invading Syrian-Kurdish cities on account of PKK-affiliated "fighters" are meaningless. In fact, even when the Adana Treaty on security was mostly respected, and when the alliance between Erdogan and Assad against the PKK was at its best, Damascus, Ankara and Tehran were unable to extract the PKK from the Kurdish community — neither in Syria, Turkey nor Iran.

On the other side, the performance of the Kurdish-Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is pro-PKK, has reached (by posting photos of Ocalan and raising PKK flags in the Kurdish-Syrian areas, and through efforts to impose its hegemony on the society by force) a disturbing, unfortunate and irresponsible level of party dogma that has obviously provoked the Turks.

However, the Turkish threats are still met with unprecedented Kurdish-Syrian condemnation and denouncement.

Should Turkey carry out its threats against the PKK in Syria, and should the PKK keep provoking Turkey in Syria, a new hell will await the Kurdish areas, one that is added to the hell that Kurdish-Turkish cities have been experiencing for three decades of bloody conflict.

On the other hand, Turkey will have achieved the Syrian regime's goal by sparking conflict between the Kurds and the Turks. The Syrian regime's evacuation of some centers and security headquarters in some Kurdish-Syrian cities, and the fact that these centers are now run by Ocalan's Kurdish Party and some other Kurdish parties is a step that was intended to provoke the Turks and incite them to invade the Kurdish areas so that the Assad regime hits two enemies (the Kurds and the Turks) with one stone.

Therefore, Turkey must beware falling into the trap of the Assad regime, a trap erected in the north of Syria. Syrian Kurdistan is different from Iraqi Kurdistan. In other words, the Turkish army cannot enter it and leave it whenever and however it wishes.

The Turkish regime knows nothing about the psychology of Syria's Kurds. If the Erdogan government commits this folly, then it will put Turkey in Syria's Kurdistan tunnel, which would swallow up Turkey. In fact, 5,000 of Syria's Kurds have been martyred in defense of the Kurdish issue in Turkey,www.ekurd.net and twice as many have fallen prey to disability. Add to this that there are about 3,000 Syrian-Kurdish fighters in the PKK and that the most prominent military leaders in this party are Syrian Kurds.

By considering the invasion of Syria's Kurdistan, Turks are targeting themselves and Turkey. Such an invasion will have bad results and consequences for Turkey. To say the least, it will give Turkey back an occupation force, and Turkey will be similar to Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights under the same Turkish pretext: Protect its border from "terrorists.”

This invasion will unite the world's Kurds against Turkey for longer than when they were united during the abduction and the arrest of Ocalan in 1999, longer than the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan in February 2008.

Moreover, Turkey will be occupying two neighboring countries (north Syria and north Cyprus), and the entire regional and international reputation gained by the government of the ruling Justice and Development Party during the last ten years will fall. Add to this that with the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, the "zero problems" theory adopted by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will also fall.

If Turkey invades Kurdish-Syrian cities, Ankara will have turned those who criticize the PKK the most and who are the most disgruntled into its most powerful advocates. It will have offered the PKK a golden service which would allow it to turn the tables on the Turkish government, both within and outside Turkey, whenever it wants.

Ankara should actively seek to gain the Kurds. If the Kurdish issue is resolved in Turkey, and the secret negotiations between Ankara and PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan succeed, as described in the Turkish media, the PKK will engage in Turkish politics, projects and ambitions, and fears of a "secret alliance" between the PKK and the Syrian regime will disappear. Thus, Turkey will win over Syria's Sunnis and Kurds.

Turkish strategy planners should pay attention to these ideas, and be extremely cautious about being drawn into the follies of invading Kurdish-Syrian cities, and about having the Kurds, everywhere, on Turkey's bad side.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, al-monitor.com

Curbing the Rise of Kurdistan

Source eKurd.net

Given stability in the KRG, far superior when compared to most of Iraq, Iraqi Kurdish President Barzani is working to facilitate his ethnic-kin’s gains in Syria. As Iraq’s Kurdish de-facto state continues to ascend, other Kurdish sectors are energized and will likely seek to follow suit, thereby making the KRG even more influential as it remains the region’s only Kurdish entity. Moreover, an increasingly strengthened and robust KRG is likely to prevent the use of the Kurdish-cause as a game of chess between competing regional powers, a notable past-time for Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. In the long-term, reducing interference from regional powers will likely erode the main hindrance to Kurdish aspirations, their lack of unity. With all Kurdish parties unified against Iraq’s incursion, it seems Baghdad’s actions are only enhancing that long-awaited unity.

Daniel Brode is an Intelligence Analyst with Max-Security Solutions (Max-Security.com), a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in Israel. He is a regular contribution writer and columnist for Ekurd.net

Read the full article Curbing the Rise of Kurdistan

Kurds prepare militia to fight in Syria

Source: Gulf News

The group who are making some of the best military preparations to secure their future are the two million Kurds who live in Syria. They are being offered serious support from the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government, KRG, in northern Iraq, where President Massoud Barzani has already announced, according to the Kurdish website Peyamner, that young Syrian Kurds who have travelled to the KRG will be given military training, so that they can play a role in “protecting their native land and maintaining security within it”.
Barzani has said that none of these new semi-military units have been sent to fight in Syria, nor was it the KRG’s intention to send them to fight at this time. The KRG’s idea is that they would eventually be dispatched in order to “fill the security vacuum” once the Syrian regime collapses, when they would be at the disposal of the “Supreme Kurdish Council” which is a body set up under Barzani’s aegis in Erbil last month and includes the Kurdish National Council and the People’s Council of West Kurdistan, which is what political Kurds call the Kurdish areas of Syria.

Read the full article Kurds prepare militia to fight in Syria

Turkey and Syria: The Kurdish Dilemma

Source: Huffington Post

After having virtually squashed the insurgency in a 16-year long war, however, Turkey found the reality on the ground change fundamentally with the emergence of a Kurdish state-in-waiting in northern Iraq, following the imposition of a U.S.-led no fly zone there in 1991 and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Turkey embraced that new fact by forging close ties with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership and investing heavily in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region in a bid to prevent it from fostering Turkish Kurdish demands for greater autonomy or moving towards full independence. The takeover of Syrian Kurdish towns along the border with Turkey by armed Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian wing of the PKK, confronts Turkey with a similar dilemma for which, unlike in Iraq, it has no ready answers.

Syrian Kurdish assertiveness raises the question whether Turkey can sustain its opposition to the aspirations of the Kurds on its borders, or whether it would be better served by embracing a proactive Kurdish policy that would turn Kurdish nationalism across West Asia to its advantage, as it did in Northern Iraq? Turkish opposition to Kurdish aspirations, moreover, despite its support for the Sunni Muslim opposition in Syria, risks putting Turkey alongside China and Russia in the camp of those opposed to the emergence of a post-Assad Syria that is more democratic and pluralistic.

Author James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer where this story first appeared.

Read the full article Turkey and Syria: The Kurdish Dilemma

Russian general killed, say Free Syrian Army

Source: Peyamner News

A video statement from a group calling itself the "Hawks Special Operations Battalion ... a division of the Military Leadership of Damascus City and Province" gave the name of the general as Vladimir Petrovich Kochyev. The video, sent to Reuters, showed what the rebels said was a copy of his ID issued by the Syrian military.

Comment: This is the same group that claimed responsibility for the assassination of four of President Bashar al-Assad's top lieutenants in Damascus last month.


Read the full article: Russian general killed, say Free Syrian Army

How the Kurds Have Changed Turkey’s Calculations on Syria

Source: Time

Syrian-Kurdish fighters last week took control of towns across northern Syria after Assad ceded them to shore up his forces in Damascus and Aleppo. Two weeks earlier, Iraqi-Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani had brokered a deal between rival Syrian-Kurdish groups, forming a national council and vowing to suppress their differences in order to pursue common Kurdish interests. That development stunned Ankara. Mainstream Turkish commentator Mehmet Ali Birand notes that the creation of an autonomous Kurdish zone in northeast Syria, following the emergence of a similar entity in Iraq, could portend the realization of one of Turkey’s worst nightmares coming true — “a mega–Kurdish state” along the southeastern border where the largest section of its own, restive Kurdish population of some 14 million is concentrated. Even the word Kurdistan is taboo in Turkey, where a separatist insurgency and efforts to suppress it have claimed more than 30,000 lives over the past three decades.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/08/06/how-the-kurds-have-changed-turkeys-calculations-on-syria/#ixzz22kugVy3O
Read the full article: How the Kurds Have Changed Turkey’s Calculations on Syria

Call for support and protection of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Syria

Statement from the Foreign Affairs Office of the Democratic Union Party (PYD)

The Kurdish areas in Syria, except from the city of Qamishli, have recently been liberated from the brutal Assad’s regime and are under Kurdish control. Consequently, we, the Democratic Union Party ( PYD), with other Kurdish political parties in the Kurdish National Council (KNC) have jointly agreed to protect and administer our regions. This agreement resulted in the establishment of the Supreme Kurdish Council, which strives to protect our legitimate gains and to consolidate them in the future constitution of a free democratic Syria.


This liberated Kurdish region could serve as a safe heaven and start point for all Syrian revolutionaries to liberate all Syria and therefore this democratic establishment should be considered as the contributors to build a free democratic and plural united Syria. This peaceful establishment should not be considered as a threat to the regional and global stability but as a constructive contribution to democracy, peace and stability in the region. The Kurds are not separatist and have never had separatist intentions. This is to declare that our goal is to democratically self-govern our regions within the geopolitical borders of the Syrian Republic. Our mission is to play our part in building the future of Syria.

We belief that the Kurds are integral to regional stability and order. However, as the future of Syria looks grim, the support and protection of Syria’s Kurds from the international community is an urgent necessity. Therefore, we call on the Regional and International communities UN, EU and the free world of their moral responsibility to support and protect the peaceful establishment of self-ruled Syrian Kurdish region.

Kurdish forces prevent Iraqi troops from entering disputed border area

Iraqi Kurdish security forces have prevented Iraqi government soldiers from reaching a disputed area that borders Syria.

Baghdad sent the Iraqi army division to protect the border.

But it's a sensitive area - both the Kurds and the Iraqi government claim the territory.

Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh from the Fishkhabour border crossing between Iraq and Syria .

Kurdistan government (KRG) training the Syrian kurdish soldiers 2012

South Kurdistan also knows as KRG has been training the Kurdish soldiers who have defected from Assad army in order to fill in the security gap the syrian kurdistan region will face after the fall of the Syrian regime

The Kurdish Issue and Its Challenges in Syria

Source Rudaw in English

"However, throughout the 17 months of popular struggle against the Syrian regime, Kurdish participation has faced criticism by the Arab opposition. They claim the Kurds do not fully support the revolt and point to the fact that shelling from regime forces has excluded Kurdish areas and that the number of victims in Kurdish regions is incomparable to those who have fallen in other areas of the country.

Moreover, the Kurdish region in Syria recently turned into a sanctuary for displaced Syrian Arabs from Homs, Der Zor, Aleppo and Idlib. People turned to the Kurdish areas due to the brutal crackdown of pro-Assad forces on their cities, and Kurdish families received them with a national and humanistic spirit, without expecting any appreciation from the Arab opposition.

Despite this remarkable support of the revolution and its principles, the Kurds are accused of serving agendas, and are expected to defend themselves to prove their intentions. This fact has led many Kurdish activists to criticize this discriminative mentality of the Arab opposition to the same degree as the Assad regime itself.

The Kurds didn’t hesitate to adopt the Syrian revolution to move the country to a new phase with a fresh social compact between the different components of the Syrian community. They also showed a readiness to be committed to both the Syrian issue and the Kurdish national issue, recognizing them as correlative and inseparable."- ADIB ABDULMAJID

Please take time to red the full article, its well argued, articulate and thought provoking The Kurdish Issue and Its Challenges in Syria

Kurdish Leader: Syrian Regime Will Stand Until End of Year

Source: Rudaw in English

"The Syrian regime is using all its power in order to prevent the fall of Aleppo, because if Aleppo falls, then the regime must forget about the east of Syria."

After Damascus, Aleppo is the second most important city in Syria and considered the backbone of the country’s economy. Around 700,000 Kurds are believed to be living in Aleppo, almost a quarter of the city’s population.

"The fall of Aleppo means cleansing Syrian Kurdistan from Assad's regime," Juma said, calling upon Kurds to unite quickly. Mustafa Juma head of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (Azadi)and member of the KNC
Read the full article Kurdish Leader: Syrian Regime Will Stand Until End of Year

KNC Leader: Syrian Kurds are Disappointed by PYD's Actions

Source Rudaw in English

"The government offices have not been taken. The government can use them any time it wants. This party’s actions have harmed the reputation of Kurds in Western Kurdistan. They are viewed as the regime’s partner. Having the regime surrender its offices to the Kurds without confrontation has harmed Kurdish interests in Syria and led to hostility between the Kurds and the Syrian revolutionaries." Abdulhakim Bashar, head of the Kurdish National Council (KNC).
Read the full article KNC Leader: Syrian Kurds are Disappointed by PYD's Actions

Syrian Kurds united against Assad – an interview with an insider

Source Daily Telegraph

" I think Turkey will never allow the PYD to control Syrian Kurdistan, not even partly, and that is why it opposes any attempt at a Kurdish semi-autonomous or a federal region" - Dr Abdulhakim Bashar, the former chairman of the KNC who now heads its foreign affairs committee (he's also the Secretary-General of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria).

Read the full article Syrian Kurds united against Assad – an interview with an insider

Leader of Free Syrian Army Says No Kurdish Region Allowed to Establish in Syria

Source: Rudaw

Colonel Riad al-Asaad, the leader of the Free Syrian Army 
“We will not allow one meter of Syrian land to be separated, and we will fight against anyone who tries to do so,” Asaad told the Turkish newspaper Bugun on Monday, attributing the FSA’s position to the principle of “one flag, united land.”

Read the full article: Leader of Free Syrian Army Says No Kurdish Region Allowed to Establish in Syria