U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish coalition faces uncertain future: NPR

ISTANBUL – In the aftermath of President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, Syria’s territory remains divided as the rebels who toppled him seek to consolidate power. The country’s uncertain future has raised questions about the fate of the US-backed Kurdish coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

This week, Syria’s new leadership took steps to disband various rebel groups and unite them under a new Syrian army. However, the SDF did not participate. SDF spokesman Farhad Shami said in a statement that the SDF is not opposed to joining the Syrian army in principle, but that negotiations with Damascus are needed on the matter.

However, given the new Syrian reality, the SDF has little choice but to maintain the status quo.

The SDF controls a third of Syria’s territory

In 2014, as Syria was engulfed in civil war, the extremist group “Islamic State” began occupying vast territory in northeastern Syria.

With US support, a coalition of Kurdish militias has been formed to help fight ISIS and reclaim territory. The coalition now controls about a third of Syria from the Euphrates River east along the Iraq-Turkey border, said Yerevan Saeed, director of the Global Kurdistan Peace Initiative at American University.

“Kurdish control of these areas took place precisely during a time of power vacuum. All these areas were occupied by ISIS, and the local population was disappointed that the SDF had removed ISIS elements from all these areas. “I was very happy,” Said said.

After ISIS’ territorial defeat in Syria in spring 2019, the SDF continued to guard prisons and camps housing thousands of ISIS fighters and their families, and continues to do so today.

The majority of the population under SDF control is Arab.

Kurds are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without their own state. They are a minority spread mainly across several countries in the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran, Türkiye, and Syria.

Some Kurds and their allies have long hoped that the areas carved out by the SDF in northeastern Syria would eventually become an autonomous Kurdish region similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. .

But that goal was unrealistic, said Dennis Natali, director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University and an expert on U.S.-Kurdish relations.

“This has never happened in any part of Syria’s history,” Natali said. “And it’s not sustainable from an economic standpoint, from a security standpoint, from a regional power relations standpoint.”

Unlike northern Iraq, the majority of the population in northeastern Syria is not Kurdish. they are arabs. The region is also inhabited by Kurds, but not all support the SDF, which follows a secular, liberal socialist ideology not shared by local Sunni Syrian Kurds.

Kurdish towns and villages are also scattered rather than contiguous, making it even more difficult to form a cohesive autonomous region.

Since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, some Arab residents under SDF control in cities such as Deir Ezzor and Raqqa have demanded to be ruled by rebels in Damascus instead. We’re doing a demo.

“With Assad’s withdrawal, local Arab communities in eastern Syria fear that a type of Kurdish militia will have ultimate authority in their region,” said Nicholas Heras, senior director of the New Lines Institute. I feel displeased,” he said. “They have another option, another choice.”

NATO ally Turkey views Kurdish militias as a threat

An even bigger challenge to the Kurdish coalition comes from Syria’s northern neighbor, Türkiye. The rebel group led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that overthrew Assad was backed by Turkey, which gave Turkey significant influence over Syria and its new leader.

Turkey said the main militia of the U.S.-backed Kurdish coalition is the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a rebel group known as the PKK, which has been fighting in Turkey for decades. Türkiye and the United States have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.

The US decision to provide arms to the Syrian branch of the PKK (known as the YPG) in the fight against ISIS is a long-standing rift in US-Turkish relations, according to James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador and special envoy to Turkey. He says he is at an impasse. Special envoy on the mission to defeat ISIS.

“Turks can never formally accept what the United States is doing with the SDF because of the huge role the PKK has played since I first came to Turkey in 1984,” Jeffrey said. He spoke while referring to support for the Syrian Kurdish Union.

Turkish officials say that immediately after the fall of the Assad regime, one of their strategic priorities in Syria was to ensure that the new Syrian leadership in Damascus took control of all of Syria and unified it, or that the YPG was dismantled by Turkey’s main military forces. He made it clear that his goal was to look at the The attack targeted YPG-controlled areas in northeastern Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned in a speech in the Turkish parliament this week that Kurdish militias “will either give up their weapons or be buried with their weapons on Syrian soil.”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland have said they would impose sanctions on Turkey if there is a military attack on Kurdish fighters in Syria. Threatened me.

Syria’s new government aims to unify the country

At a press conference with Turkey’s foreign minister in Damascus last Sunday, Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Shara, said: “Any weapons present in Syria, whether revolutionary or existing factions, cannot be used by the state.” We cannot allow it to be left outside of our control.” In the Self-Defense Forces area. ”

With the US-led anti-ISIS coalition already scheduled to disband in Iraq, Turkish authorities are encouraging Syria’s new leadership to eventually seize control of ISIS prisons and camps in Syria from the SDF. There is.

“The Syrian government has informed us that it is ready to take the necessary initiatives to take back these prisoners,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a press conference with Shara.

Analysts expect a diplomatic agreement between Damascus and the SDF to eventually be reached without a military attack on SDF areas by Turkey.

“I think a more realistic prospect is some form of decentralized administration, where Kurdish cities have local autonomy,” Natali said.

U.S. officials worry about ISIS resurgence, but Syria is not a strategic priority

Natali, who served as assistant secretary of state for conflict and stabilization operations during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, said the long-standing agreement between the United States and the Kurdish coalition in Syria is no longer strategically viable due to changes inside and outside Syria. Said it was unfeasible. Washington.

“We’re in different situations,” she says. “Our new administration has clear priorities, and Syria is not a priority.”

Rather, she says President Trump’s priority is ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

“And these kinds of priorities will require strategic partners like Turkey,” Natali said.

During his first term, Trump unsuccessfully pushed for the return of 900 US troops stationed in Syria. During this year’s election campaign, he has made ending the war and staying out of other conflicts a big part of his message, and is expected to want to withdraw troops from Syria again.

However, given the extent of the destruction of Syria’s physical infrastructure and the fraying of its social dynamics under Assad’s violent rule, many experts remain skeptical that Syria will ultimately become a divided state.

And U.S. officials worry that ISIS could take advantage of the vacuum to re-emerge, making a complete U.S. withdrawal from Syria even more difficult.

Mike Walz, President Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, said in a Sunday interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro that the United States does not need to have troops on the ground in Syria, but that He said he could not turn a blind eye to what was happening. .

“Tens of thousands of fighters and their families sitting in prison camps have our support and are protected by our Kurdish friends. We cannot unleash something like this again. ”Waltz said.