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Syria's Kurds stand alone after rejecting rebels and regime
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Developments in Syria and Iraq have led some
to speculate that the birth of an independent Kurdish state might be at hand.
A closer analysis shows that a united Kurdistan is still unlikely, although a
separate semiautonomous Kurdish community in Syria, with some parallels to
the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq, is a growing possibility.
In Syria, Kurds are sitting on the sidelines
of the uprising against the Damascus regime. Indeed, the Free Syrian Army has
accused members of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of hindering
its operations in some areas against the Assad regime, according to the
Kurdish website Rudaw.net. Leaders of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union
Party (PYD), which is affiliated with the PKK, have made it clear that they
will not tolerate the spread of Syria's conflict into the Kurdish-dominated
areas of Syria.
The PYD stands separate from the Kurdish
National Council, a coalition of 11 Kurdish parties in Syria that has ties to
the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. But leaders of the
Kurdish National Council have also indicated to Rudaw that they are aiming to
keep Kurdish areas free from fighting between the regime and the rebels.
The Kurdish groups are far from united on
most issues - the KNC has in the past clashed with the PYD, but since Syria's
unrest began last year, the two factions have "signed an agreement
sponsored by the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to prevent intra-Kurdish
tensions", according to Jonathan Spyer, an analyst at the Israel-based
Global Research in International Affairs Center.
This, Mr Spyer writes in the Jerusalem Post,
ensures "de facto Kurdish control of a large swathe of Syria's
north-east and the placing of this area off limits to the insurgency against
the Assad regime for the foreseeable future".
Syria's Kurds are not, by and large,
supporters of President Bashar Al Assad, but their scepticism about the
Syrian opposition is understandable. For one thing, rebel fighters in Syria
have the support of Ankara, which has a bad reputation regarding Turkish
Kurds in matters of civil and cultural rights.
In addition, whenever Kurdish groups have
tried to engage the Syrian opposition about the shape of a post-Assad Syria,
talks have always broken down. The main issue is that the opposition refuses
to drop the identification of Syria as an Arab nation (as evinced in the
country's official name: "Syrian Arab Republic") and accept that
Kurds are a distinct people. Thus ended the recent Cairo meeting of
anti-Assad groups, attended by the KNC.
With Syrian Kurds declining to choose between
Mr Al Assad and the opposition, the idea of a de facto Kurdish autonomous
area in the Al Jazira area of north-east Syria becomes a possibility.
In the event of Mr Al Assad's downfall, Sunni
groups and others in Syria might be too distracted by infighting to deal with
the question of Kurdish autonomy.
It does not follow, however, that the Syrian
Kurds will join with Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government to form an
independent Kurdish state straddling the northern part of today's Iraq-Syria
border.
Evidently, Iraq's Kurdish leadership would
like to win independence from Baghdad eventually, although that is rarely
stated explicitly. But economic independence is a prerequisite, and Syria's
Kurdish areas would have little to offer the Iraqi Kurds in that regard.
Most of Syria's remaining oil reserves are
located in the Sunni Arab tribal areas around Deir Ezzor. Nor does Syria's
Kurdish region have access to ports that could allow Iraq's Kurds to set up
an independent pipeline to transport petroleum to the international market.
There was considerable media coverage of an
agreement signed in May between Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government
of Iraq, covering two pipelines that carry oil and gas from the Kirkuk area
to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
Numerous reports portrayed this deal as
incurring the disapproval of the Iraqi government in Baghdad. The implication
was that Turkey and the KRG had agreed, without Baghdad's permission, to set
up these pipelines.
Some commentators saw the deal as part of a
Turkish strategy to deepen economic ties with Iraqi Kurds. This was seen as a
sign that the Turkish government had warmed to the idea of potential Kurdish
independence.
However, as the analyst Joel Wing of the blog
Musings on Iraq noted, this analysis gets the basic facts wrong. The
Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipelines are under the control of the oil ministry in Baghdad,
and so the KRG agreement with Turkey must have had central government
approval to some degree. After all, Baghdad provides 95 per cent of the KRG's
annual budget.
Note that the Kurdish areas of Turkey
constitute at least 50 per cent of the dreamed of Kurdistan. Ankara would not
welcome an independent Kurdish state just south of its border, believing that
such a state would increase the possibility of a Kurdish revolt in Turkey's
south-east. One of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipelines was shut down on Saturday
after an explosion that Ankara blamed on Kurdish rebels. That fraught
relationship does not appear to be improving any time soon.
As long as Turkey remains opposed to Kurdish
independence and the KRG lacks opportunities to break its financial reliance
on Baghdad, an independent Kurdistan will remain a remote prospect.
Aymenn
Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and
an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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