The double message of Damascus on the autonomy of Rojava
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1074849/le-double-message-de-damas-sur-lautonomie-du-rojava.html
The goal of Bashar al-Assad's regime is to differentiate itself from Baghdad, while putting pressure on Turkey.
The Syrian Kurds "want a form of autonomy within the framework of the Syrian Arab Republic. This question is negotiable and can be the subject of dialogue, "Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said in an interview Monday with Russia Today and reported by Syrian official agency SANA. The use of the term "autonomy" for Syrian Kurdistan is a first for Damascus. "When we eliminate Daech (Arabic acronym of the Islamic State), we can sit down with our Kurdish sons and reach an agreement in principle on a formula for the future," he said.
The timing is not insignificant. Walid Moallem referred to this "autonomy" on the very day of the referendum for the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, criticized by Baghdad and the international community. a consultation to which Damascus is also firmly opposed. Seeking to remove any ambiguity about a possible scenario similar to the referendum of the Kurds of Iraq, the head of Syrian diplomacy called the referendum "unacceptable", warning that it could lead to the "fragmentation" of the country.
In addition, Walid Moallem's remarks came just three days after the first municipal council elections organized by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), with the aim of creating a decentralized federal system in Syrian Kurdistan. This election marks the first step before the election of legislative councils by cantons and a legislative assembly for the federal region in January 2018. Bashar al-Assad's regime had then hastened to call the ballot a "joke" .
Distance from Barzani
The Kurds of Syria represent an estimated 15% of the Syrian population and are divided into three cantons in the north and north-east of the country, Afrin, Kobané and Jaziré, under the name Rojava. However, the PYD and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPGs), attracted the support of the Assad and Moscow regimes, as well as the international coalition led by Washington, thanks to their support in the fight against Islamic State in the region since 2014.
Controlling the cantons of northern Syria from which they have driven out the jihadists, and in particular the strategic point of Kobané linking Syria to Turkey, the Kurds enjoy a de facto autonomy. In 2016, the PYD had proclaimed the creation of an autonomous federal system of Rojava, rejected by Damascus. But unlike the Iraqi Kurds, the PYD project is theoretically based on territorial and non-ethnic considerations.
Does the statement by the head of Syrian diplomacy mark a turning point in the nature of relations between the Kurds and the Syrian regime? "It's not a big breakthrough," says Jordi Tejel, a professor at the University of Neuchâtel's Institute of History and a Kurdish specialist. "Since 2012, the Syrian regime is playing with the idea that it has a strong communication channel with the PYD, while the PYD denies it," he notes. Opening the possibility to an "agreement in principle" does not involve either Damascus or PYD. "There is a lot of grandiloquence behind these declarations of principle, which are not the first, and few concrete advances," continues the professor.
The words of Walid Moallem are not without some ambiguity, says Tejel: "Are we talking about autonomy for a united entity? From a Syrian Kurdistan? From a federation? "The objective of the Syrian regime's speech is to" distance itself from the Massoud Barzani project in Iraq ", while the regional context is well agitated on the Kurdish question, he raises. The PYD and the Democratic Party of Iraqi Kurdistan of Barzani also maintain tense relations. For the researcher, "there is a kind of tacit agreement between the Kurds and Damascus for the" subletting "of the north of the country, at least in the short term". It is also for the regime of Damascus to display the image of a "moderate country ready to recognize the autonomy of the Kurds" as opposed to Turkey, adds Tejel.
Message to Erdogan
The second underlying objective of the statements of the Syrian Foreign Minister is directly related to Turkey by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently reiterated that he "will never allow" the establishment of a Kurdish state in the Syrian North by the PYD. Ankara sees the links between the PYD and the YPG on the one hand and the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on the other, Western countries, as a "terrorist organization". To argue that negotiations are possible with a view to the autonomy of the Kurdish cantons in Syria "aims to put pressure on Turkey", observes Tejel. The two countries have a stormy relationship, while Ankara has sometimes been conciliatory and sometimes critical of Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The opening of Damascus in the direction of the Kurds is therefore also "a response to the change of policy of Erdogan", criticism of Assad, observes the expert. Syrian Kurdistan's autonomy worries Ankara, while the Kurds of Turkey represent more than 15% of the population. Fearing that the Kurdish autonomy movements in neighboring countries will instill a similar movement in Turkey, Erdogan has consistently condemned the Kurdish referendum in Iraq and threatened to close the border between his country and Iraq, transits oil from Iraqi Kurdistan.
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