Alwaght- Thanks to their potentials and facilities, the Syrian Kurds have managed to establish an autonomous region in the areas under their control after 2011. Areas, where the Kurds intended to establish an autonomous region, and may be an independent state in the future, stretches from Ein Divar village in Dirak, which is a town of Al-Hasakah province, and ends near Turkish borders in west in Iskandaron region. The Syrian Kurds established three zones, or cantons, across northern Syria under an autonomous democratic system to seize the administration of the planned area.
Despite successes achieved in political and administrative areas, the Syrian Kurds should be aware of the fact that the process to transform from a dependent population into an independent self-governing or federal region or a nation-state is highly complicated in West Asia, and beside demanding a set of territorial, executive and demographic conditions, it is tied to the regional and international powers’ agreements and deals.
In order to explain the obstacles in three internal, regional and international levels ahead of the Syrian Kurds’ move to autonomy, we discuss the following issues:
1. Difficulties inside Syria
Syria’s Kurds along with the army, Alawites, Sunnis and the internationalist Salafis are simply a force, and by the way they are not level with any of their opponents. So internal obstructions setting them back from reaching their goals are:
A) Clashes between Kurdish political fractions
Following the Iraqi and Syrian developments two major factions emerged from the heart of Syria’s Kurdish political forces. One of them is the West Kurdistan People's Association, which is under influence of Democratic Union Party, and the other one is Kurdistan National Council of Syria, which is under direct impact of Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Being a branch of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the first fraction is considered to be presenting a serious threat to Turkey. But the second Kurdish fraction, due to its links to the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq and Turkey, represents the favorable candidate for Turkey to work with in Syria’s future developments. But, the Democratic Union Party has succeeded in recent years in monopolizing the political and economic power, banning the parties connected to Kurdistan National Council of Syria from any political participation. Speaking up against the Democratic Union Party’s totalitarian policies for several times, the Syrian Kurds have called for political power sharing among the different Kurdish parties and fractions. But the demands have received no attention as they were countered by rejection from the Kurdish cantons’ administration. Although in the present conditions the depth of the differences between the Two Syrian Kurdish fractions is not considerable, in the future serious disputes could erupt between Democratic Union Party’s forces and the forces under control and support of Masoud Barzani, who is in close accord with the Turkey’s policies in the region. Even a domestic fight between the Kurds cannot be ruled out. Therefore, the internal disaccords between the Syria’s Kurdish political movements could be taken as one of the obstacles standing ahead of their future move to an integrated territorial unit.
B) Disaccords with Syrian Arab opposition parties
The conflict with other present parties on the ground in Syria, including the country’s central government, the Free Syrian Army, al-Nusra Front and ISIS is another setback faced by Syria’s Kurds. The Kurds are in deep disagreement with other sides over the future of Syria and the country’s current situation, and it is likely that there would be a severe conflict in the future with other sides active in Syria. Undoubtedly, as long as Kurds seek separation from Syria, wide-ranging conflict could take place between the Arab sides and the Kurds after the current devastating war.
C) Geopolitical restrictions
The most significant difficulty in the road of the Syrian Kurds in the forthcoming developments is the pattern of demographic and geographic distribution of the Kurdish-inhabited areas. "The scattered geographical distribution of the areas inhabited by the Kurds in Syria has barred them from forming a unified cultural community and a centralized political force". More precisely, the Kurdish-populated regions are disconnected from each other because of existence of Arab areas standing between them. However, all of the towns inhabited by Syrian Kurds share borders with Kurdish areas in Turkey and Iraq. The fact is that remoteness and disconnection of different Syrian Kurdish towns have set up a host of difficulties ahead of Kurdish political forces to forge a united society. In addition to Arab-inhabited areas, the Kurds of Syria have another issue to deal with in the future and it is the existence of small Turkmen, Christian and Assyrian communities in their regions.
But, they have managed to overcome, to some extent, to this problem standing in their way through establishing their cantons. After gaining control of Tell Abyad, which is located within Al-Raqqah province, the Kurdish forces joined the two Island and Kobani cantons together. One of the likely scenarios to be implemented by Kurds is that they, with support by the US army, capture areas between Jerablos and Azaz cities to prepare for a full control over Al-Raqqah, the ISIS stronghold. The outcome of this plan would be joining together Kobani and Afrin cantons. Therefore, the whole of Syria’s north as an integrated self-governing unit would fall in Kurds’ hands. Many of the Kurdish-held areas do not have homogeneous demographic structure, as Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian populations are living there, which could in the future set many issues ahead of administration of the areas by the Kurds.
2. Regional opposition and Turkey’s sensitivity
In addition to internal difficulties, Syria’s Kurds face a series of regional obstacles, the most important of which is Turkey. The Kurds domination over the Kurdish-populated areas and the intelligence and administrative services there after emergence of crisis in Syria has made Turkey highly concerned. Meanwhile, Ankara is deeply worried about control of Democratic Union Party, as a branch of PKK, over the Kurdish areas. Because the party’s holding of the Kurdish areas facilitates stationing of the PKK fighters in the areas, and that would build a new front and safe haven for them to launch wider attacks against Turkish territories.
To be more obvious, should the Kurdish forces, including People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units, keep advancing west toward Kobani, the Kobani, Afrin and Island triple cantons would be officially united. As a result of union of the three cantons, Ankara would lose a major part of its linking roads which connect it with Free Syrian Army and other militant groups under its influence. Thereby, over %80 of Turkey borders with Syria would fall to the Kurds. The Turkish officials have repeatedly proclaimed that they make any affort to stave off connection between Afrin and Kobani cantons and control of the cantons by the Syria’s Kurdish fighters. Turkey, currently, has land borders with Syria’s territories and the anti-Assad forces through Idlib-Lattakia road and Aleppo. If the Kurds' struggles to connect their self-governing cantons yield results, Turkey would practically lose access to a large part of Syrian opposition, an issue to be branded a strategic loss for Ankara, because during past few months, Turkey, using military groups under its control, has gone to great lengths to hold control of Aleppo, the largest city in northern Syria, to operate the project of capturing Damascus from there. (The measures taken to reach this goal included forming a joint command center of the opposition militants under Jaish al-Fatah title.) In case the Kurdish forces succeed in implementing their project, Turkey would lose one of its pivotal supply lines to the Syrian opposition fighters, and oppositions to capture Aleppo would be forced to use the long Turkey-Idlib-Aleppo road. Militarily speaking, the anti-Assad advances would be slowed down and even crippled, and this means isolation of Syrian opposition forces in northern Syria.
Reacting to these possible events in the future, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, has frequently insisted that if Syria’s Kurdish regions turned out as bases for launching attacks against Turkey by the Kurdish militants, the government would dispatch military forces to the threatening areas. But, it seems that Turkey’s worries are not limited to the possible attacks by PKK or its arms supply lines. Ankara is discomforted by the possible US and its allies, and perhaps later Russia, approach shift and the decision to help establish a Kurdish state near Turkey’s southern borders. So, Turkey would spare no effort to preserve the intended safe zone, as well as the “strategic depth” in Syria. Undoubtedly, the Turkish army would be the important hurdle ahead of Democratic Union Party’s plans in Syria’s future developments.
3. Absence of international will for Syrian Kurds’ independence
Internationally, the rise of a new autonomous region or partition of a country depends to a variety of humanitarian and concrete conditions. The new countries and regions like Kosovo, Iraq’s Kurdistan region and South Sudan have been appeared in the global community as a result of heinous crimes against the humanity or the world influential superpowers’ interest-run will. In this case the dominant international superpowers’ interests are the determining principle. In present time only the Israeli regime and the Iraqi Kurdistan region are interested in partition of Syria. The lack of international will and the existence of very sturdy hurdles make the full independence scenario almost impossible. But, the autonomy could be more likely, and despite all of difficulties, the democratic merger option with reservation of special rights and affirmative action (or positive discrimination) could satisfy the Kurds in a post-war Syria.
