Kurdish anti-Syrian government activists parade through the streets in celebration of the official declaration of liberation of the city of Derik, near Al-Malikiyah, on 15 November 2012.[/caption]
For several months now, the north-eastern, Kurdish areas of Syria have been shaking off the control of Damascus despite the continued presence of security officials. The Syrian government has prioritized the fight against the Arab opposition in Aleppo and Damascus, whilst Kurdish parties have been allowed to gain ground in their regions. This unwritten agreement between the Baathist government and the main Kurdish militia, a proxy for the Turkish Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) called the Democratic Union Party (PYD), has not gone unnoticed by some factions of the Arab opposition, culminating in clashes between the Arabs and the Kurds during the last month. The main group of Syrian Arab insurgents, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is sponsored by Turkey. The risk of a transnational conflict is becoming an ever more likely scenario, and both Ankara and Damascus can reap benefits from provoking Arab–Kurdish strife.
On 26 October, an armed Arab opposition group sought to deploy in Al-Ashrafiyeh, one of Aleppo’s Kurdish neighborhoods, despite the resistance from residents hoping to preserve security. Instead, the Syrian government shelled the quarter, targeting Arab militias, and nine Kurds were killed. The military attack ignited a cycle of reprisals on both sides as the PYD stepped in to defend Kurdish residents. On 19 November, Arab–Kurdish clashes followed the same script in the frontier town of Ras Al-Ayn, where the entrance of Arab rebels brought about another government offensive. The local head of the People’s Council of Western Kurdistan (PCWK)—the Syrian body comprising the PYD—was assassinated on the same day by Arab militiamen.
In between these two episodes, five others have fallen victim to clashes between the PYD and the Islamist Northern Storm Brigade, after the latter allegedly attacked members of the Kurdish Yazidi religious minority in the countryside of Aleppo. Most of the Arab militias blamed for attacks on Kurds are Islamic hardliners such as the Al-Nusra Front, Ghuraba’ Al-Sham, and Jund Al-Sham. The Islamist bent amongst certain Arab opposition groups has made members of the Kurdish community wary to join their cause. Dilshad,* a 38-year-old Kurd from Qamishli, quit the FSA to join Kurdish military training camps along the Iraqi border due to what he considers to be the FSA’s “Islamist, racist behavior” against religious and ethnic minorities.
However, the nebulous structure of the Free Syrian Army means that any direct links between the FSA and radical groups cannot be ascertained. On 19 November, the PYD media representative ruled out any connection between the FSA and the Islamist perpetrators of the PCWK assassination in Ras Al-Ayn. Nonetheless, the PCWK official spokesperson accused snipers of belonging to the Free Syrian Army.
In the Kurdish arms race, Iraqi–Kurdish media outlets have argued that the pro-Western Kurdish National Council (KNC), the other main Syrian–Kurdish formation, may lose ground in favor of the more militarized PYD. However, the KNC has the military backing of its main sponsor, the pro-Turkish President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, to fill this gap. “On November 28, between 1,500 and 3,000 Syrian fighters trained by Barzani’s peshmergas (armed forces) will enter Syria from Iraq,” said Dilshad, although it remains to be seen whether Syrian peshmerga boots will arrive on the ground.
“The new Syrian peshmergas won’t cooperate with the PKK, they will stick to those cities where the PYD is weaker, like Al-Malikiyah and Qamishli,” continues Dilshad. Syrian–Kurdish unity appears a distant prospect, especially after the Erbil Agreement signed on 11 July between the KNC and the PYD proved to be a farce. On 29 October, the two main parties met in Erbil to discuss a shared response to the Arab–Kurdish clashes, but the summit proved unfruitful. Half-baked negotiations are in the making for the establishment of a joint Kurdish army, but divisions continue to mar efforts towards a united front.
Nevertheless, a shared enemy in the Arab opposition is perhaps the most powerful unifying force, since even the moderate KNC has no sympathy for the Free Syrian Army. “Our [Kurdish] regions reject terror, hence the FSA cannot hide there,” affirms Nuri Brimo, the head of KNC media. “If we need to, we will get ready to fight and defend our territories.”
Regardless of party politics, the growing militarization will reduce the space for peaceful Kurdish youth committees, who are not willing to “sacrifice” their revolution for an ethnic conflict. They are likely to be overrun by militias, just like their Arab counterparts.
The possibility of a confrontation between the Kurdish and Arab opposition is clearly in the interests of the Syrian government, who could hope to drag the PKK and Turkey into the conflict in an attempt to find salvation in the internationalization of the crisis.
Regarding Ankara’s moves, “there are confirmed Turkish demands to the FSA to attack the PYD,” claims Mohammad Rasho, a PCWK representative in Iraqi Kurdistan. Last June, an allegedly leaked document originating from the Turkish consulate in Erbil was distributed by the pro-PKK Firat News Agency, advertising the Turkish attempts to bring Syria’s Kurdish region under FSA control. “The Turkish government is aware that four high-ranking PKK officials have just entered Syria,” explains the military trainee, Dilshad, “and the PKK agenda is a region independent from ‘the Syrian entity.’”
Given these premises, Kurds are likely to see the fight to defend their territories turned into a greater conflict serving the interests of other actors: a flashback to all three previous Gulf Wars in Iraq.
*A pseudonym has been used for security reasons.
