The Kurds in the Syrian Crisis
Historic Opportunity and Disappointing Performance
The Syrian state was defined by its current borders, which are internationally recognized by several agreements and treaties that followed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, concluded between France and the United Kingdom at Downing Street on May 16, 1916, which divided the Middle East between the two superpowers and with the consent of Russia Empire and Italy. Under this agreement, present-day Northern Syria was subjected to French influence. Still, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Turkish Republic, several treaties were signed between it and the Mandatory France of Syria to demarcate the border, the most recent of which was the final demarcation agreement of the border in 1939. Within this definition, the boundaries of the Syrian state, which effectively gained independence in 1946, included the geographically cut-off areas of Ottoman Kurdistan covered by the Treaty of Sèvres, which concluded on August 10 1920, following World War I, between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire and aimed at implementing the decisions of the San Remo Conference concerning the territory of the Ottoman Empire.
After gaining independence, the authorities that succeeded in governing Syria could not overcome these two dilemmas and move the Syrian state to a democratic state that recognizes and constitutionally endorses pluralism but has consolidated, over time, and with the succession of regimes that have mostly seized power through military coups, exclusionary, abolitionist and dictatorial tendencies that have supported the centralized form of state with ethnic, cultural and political centralities.
On the other hand, the Kurdish political movement, born to represent the Kurdish people politically and work to secure their legitimate rights, adopted a peaceful approach to confronting this complex policy, demanding the rights of its people and working towards their achievement. Taking this choice had a range of objective factors related to what we might call the ordeal (Peripheral Division) where the Kurdish areas were rural, and plains cut off from their urban centers that remained behind the new border and are primarily plain, except for the mountainous Afrin region, small in size compared to the plains of other areas. The ruling regimes in Syria have adopted a different approach to dealing with the Kurdish people, based mainly on political projects carried out by covert forces. Thus, unlike the Kurdish issue in other parts of Kurdistan, the Kurdish issue in Syria has maintained its peaceful political character and has at no point turned into conflict or armed conflict. Despite the different circumstances surrounding the Kurdish issue in Syria at various stages of its course, despite the regimes' methods of dealing with it ranging from severity at times to inaction at other times, and despite the occurrence of events of a limited nature on some occasions, this peaceful character has remained prevalent.
Book Details
276 Pages
Rudaw Research Center, July, 2022
Erbil, South Kurdistan
First edition
This Book is available in Arabic