Kurdish leaders seek unity amid Syria's shifting landscape

WASHINGTON — 

Kurdish leaders successful Iraq and Syria are pledging to collaborate intimately to beforehand Kurdish rights successful Syria pursuing the autumn of President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities past month.

In a uncommon gathering adjacent Irbil, the superior of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Masoud Barzani, the longtime person of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the ruling enactment successful Iraqi Kurdistan, held talks Thursday with Mazloum Abdi, commandant of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The gathering has renewed hopes for unity among Syrian Kurdish factions, which person agelong been divided by governmental and ideological differences.

“The 2 leaders discussed the existent concern successful Syria, including the latest information and governmental developments,” Barzani’s bureau said successful a connection pursuing the Thursday meeting. Both leaders emphasized the value of establishing a unified Kurdish beforehand successful Syria, the connection added.

Abdi, whose SDF controls astir one-third of Syria’s territory, said his discussions with the Iraqi Kurdish person centered connected the transitional process successful Syria pursuing the ouster of Assad’s authorities by rebel forces.

“Together, we reaffirmed that the Kurdish presumption successful Syria indispensable beryllium unified and that dialog with Damascus indispensable peacefully support the rights of Kurdish people,” helium wrote connected the societal media level X connected Friday.

The Kurdish portion successful northeast Syria has mostly been governed by governmental groups affiliated with the SDF since 2012, aft authorities forces withdrew to combat rebel groups elsewhere successful the country. Since then, a Kurdish-led autonomous medication has expanded into immoderate Arab-majority areas successful eastbound Syria, peculiarly arsenic the SDF, with enactment from a U.S.-led planetary coalition, played a cardinal relation successful defeating the Islamic State panic group.

There is besides the Kurdish National Council successful Syria (ENKS), which is simply a conjugation of Kurdish parties that are opposed to SDF’s governmental affiliates. ENKS has ties with Barzani’s KDP and Turkey.

Experts suggest that the evolving dynamics successful the Middle East contiguous a invaluable accidental for Kurdish groups to beforehand their cause.

“As determination powers look mounting challenges — Syria’s aboriginal remains uncertain, Iran’s subject power and its axis of absorption proceed to wane, and tensions betwixt Turkey and Israel escalate — the prospects for Kurdish unity are growing,” said Loqman Radpey, a probe chap astatine the Middle East Forum.

He told VOA by email that the caller gathering successful Irbil mirrors those shifting dynamics successful the region.

However, these Kurdish efforts for unity travel amid persistent threats by Turkey against the SDF. Ankara views the Kurdish radical arsenic an hold of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated arsenic a violent enactment by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. Turkish officials person threatened subject enactment to destruct the SDF if it refuses to disarm.

Syria’s caller authorities, which are backed by Turkey and led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a U.S.-designated violent organization, person besides called for the disbandment of the SDF and the integration of its members into the country’s caller Defense Ministry. However, the SDF has stated it volition not laic down its arms without a genuine governmental process successful Syria, 1 successful which it tin play a cardinal relation successful shaping the country’s aboriginal military.

Barzani, the erstwhile president of the Kurdistan Region, holds important power among Syrian Kurds and maintains ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Experts accidental this positions him to play a pivotal relation successful mediating betwixt Syrian Kurdish groups and Turkey.

“For rather a agelong time, President Barzani has leveraged his idiosyncratic and governmental relationships with cardinal actors successful some the Kurdish and Turkish camps erstwhile the clip was close to defuse hostility and broker peace,” said Yerevan Saeed, manager of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace astatine American University successful Washington.

“I deliberation what sets Barzani isolated is not conscionable his diplomatic acumen, but his heavy knowing of the Kurdish origin and the determination powerfulness dynamics astatine play,” helium told VOA by email.

Saeed noted that the Kurdish question is inherently transnational, and addressing it demands a broad approach.

“This is wherefore Kurdish leaders crossed borders indispensable meet, coordinate and strategize unneurotic to guarantee that uncommon opportunities are not squandered,” helium said.

This communicative originated successful VOA’s Kurdish Service.