International Crisis Group
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Fate of Kurdish minority at present rests in Syria: report | The Daily Star
As fighting continued Tuesday between anti-government rebels and the Kurdish population in northeast Syria, International Crisis Group released a report contending that the minority’s “fate at present rests in Syria.”
Although describing the conflict as an opportunity for the minority group to “rectify historic wrongs and push for more autonomy,” the Crisis Group emphasized that it is with “Syrians that [the Kurds] must negotiate their role in the coming order and ensure, at long last, respect for their basic rights.”
Photo: Jan Sefti/Flickr
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Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle Within a Struggle
Erbil/Damascus/Brussels | 22 Jan 2013
Syria’s conflict gives its Kurdish population an opening to rectify historic wrongs and push for more autonomy, but facing internal divisions, poor ties with the non-Kurdish opposition and regional rivalries , its challenge is to articulate clear, unified and achievable demands.
Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle Within a Struggle, the latest International Crisis Group report, examines the growing influence of Kurdish factions in Syria while warning against entanglement in the broader regional battle over Kurdish independence.
“For the foreseeable future, the fate of Syria’s Kurds lies in Syria and rests on their ability to manage relations with the surrounding society and an emerging, pluralistic political scene”, says Peter Harling, Crisis Group’s Syria, Egypt and Lebanon Project Director. “They express specific fears and general demands, but need to engage broader society and define a platform to serve as a basis for negotiations”.
Syria’s conflict has given its Kurds an opportunity to escape from a long period of systemic discrimination. Hoping to avoid a new battlefront and banking on Arab-Kurdish divisions to further muddy the picture, the regime largely left Kurds alone. In turn, Syrian Kurdish factions, many with ties to Kurdish groups based in Turkey or northern Iraq, took advantage of the regime’s preoccupation. This is the case in particular of the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD), the Syrian offshoot of Turkey’s PKK insurgency, whose military wing has ousted government officials and security forces from many majority-Kurd areas.
Yet, several factors should give Kurdish leaders pause. Kurdish factions are deeply divided over goals and tactics, as well as more petty rivalries. Some accuse the PYD, the largest and most influential group, of being overly dependent on the PKK. Other Kurdish groups are a motley collection of smaller parties that, unlike the PYD, lack an effective military presence within Syria.
Kurdish factions compete not only with each other but also with the non-Kurdish opposition, whose predominantly Arab nationalist and Islamist narratives alienate many Kurds. In turn, Kurds have raised suspicions about their ultimate goals and notably their willingness to remain part of Syria. The more the conflict drags on, the more ethnic tensions build. Already, there are turf battles between PYD fighters and opposition armed groups. Worse clashes may come.
Finally, the Syrian conflict has exacerbated the undeclared fight for the heart and soul of the Kurdish national movement in the four countries (Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran) across which it is divided. Syrian Kurdish parties, like their regional patrons, have different views on tactics: whether to extract concessions by force or engagement and compromise.
“By and large, Syria’s Kurds already have made strides in their quest for greater rights by being masters of their own areas for the first time in the history of modern Syria”, says Maria Fantappie, Crisis Group’s Middle East Analyst. “They plan to parlay new freedoms into constitutional guarantees in the new order that eventually will emerge. But that will only be possible if their parties and youth groups coordinate, reach out to broader Syrian society and make their struggle for Kurdish national rights part of the larger struggle for citizenship in Syria”.
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Peter Harling, Crisis Group’s Iraq, Lebanon and Syria Project Director, speaks with Armen Georgian on France 24 about Syria and the country’s future
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‘Zero hour’: Syrian rebels prepare to mount Damascus attack | The Telegraph
By Ruth Sherlock
As rebels fought government troops on the outskirts of the capital, a Damascus based analyst told the Daily Telegraph that the fighting was likely to defeat the aspirations of both sides.
“There is the risk of the total destruction of Damascus,” said Peter Harling, Project Director with the Middle East Programme of the International Crisis Group. “The regime is well entrenched in some key parts of Damascus and the opposition is unable to come up with a political vision to offer an exit to the bulk of people fighting for the regime.
“We could see a repeat of the level of destruction that we have seen in other towns, but it would be worse this time: what transition do you get when you destroy the seat on power?”
Photo: Elizabeth Arrott/Wikimedia Commons
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Syria rebels, Kurdish militia discuss cease-fire | CNN
By Ivan Watson, Shiyar Sayed Mohammed and Ammar Cheikh Omar
Istanbul (CNN) – Syrian rebels and a Kurdish militia appear to be negotiating a cease-fire after clashes in the battle-scarred northern city of Aleppo on Saturday left at least 21 fighters dead and more than 100 people kidnapped.
According to Ahmad Afash, a commander from the rebel Free Syrian Army, or FSA, at least 16 FSA fighters were killed when they clashed with armed members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, on Saturday. He said at least five Kurdish fighters were also killed in the battle.
Photo: VOA/Wikimedia Commons
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Communal tensions simmer in Syria’s Aleppo | AFP
By Jennie Matthew
ALEPPO, Syria — The Kurdish rebel sits fiddling with his Kalashnikov looking bored when a comrade suddenly breaks into screams of “Allahu akbar” as a series of explosions reverberate from the front line.
“Take it easy, take it easy, he can’t hear you,” says the Kurd, sitting next to a pile of broken glass on the street, his jeans rolled up to reveal knock-off black plimsolls with the word “PRADA” written on the label.
Photo: FreedomHouse/Wikimedia Commons
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Rebel-Kurd tensions boil over in north, create friction | The Daily Star
By Jennie Matthew
AZAZ, Syria: Mohammad Haffar was killed at dawn, shot while reportedly trying to rescue his brother Faisal, mortally wounded, from the latest gun battles between Sunni Arab rebels and Kurdish militia in Syria.
It was the second clash in 48 hours and killed up to four Arabs near the Kurdish village of Yazi Bah, close to the Turkish border in northern Syria, according to Arab rebel fighters in their nearby bastion of Azaz.
Photo: VOA/Wikimedia Commons
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“The Syrians initially assumed that the international community would intervene at some point. They assumed that, in the end, it would not leave them to fend for themselves. In the event, too many signals came from the international community that encouraged armed opposition groups to escalate the situation. There were numerous indications of international support. But words were not followed by deeds. All that followed were sanctions. But these hit civilians harder than the regime.” —Peter Harling, Crisis Group’s Project Director for Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, speaks to Deutsche Well about the transformation of the Syrian opposition
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“Far from being rigid or monolithic, Syrian Salafism is eclectic and fluid. While all Salafists in theory apply literalist interpretations of scripture based on the example set by the Prophet and his companions, some have only a superficial understanding, lacking any genuine ideological vision; others seek to replace the secular regime with an Islamist form of governance; while a third tendency embraces the concept of global jihad advocated by al-Qaeda.” — from Crisis Group’s recent report,“Tentative Jihad: Syria’s Fundamentalist Opposition” -
“The question of Salafism within opposition ranks has been more of a political football than a subject of serious conversation. Assad backers played it up, convinced they could frighten both the country’s own non-Islamists and minorities as well as the West, still traumatised by its misadventure in Iraq. Regime detractors played it down, intent on preserving the image of a pristine uprising; people sympathetic to their cause, whether in the media or elsewhere, likewise were reluctant to delve too deeply into the issue, anxious about playing into regime hands.” — from Crisis Group’s recent report,“Tentative Jihad: Syria’s Fundamentalist Opposition”
