Russia-Turkey deal shatters Syria Kurd dreams of self-rule
ATurkish-Russian deal signed in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that carves up northeastern Syria sounds the death knell for Kurdish autonomy, analysts say. Syria’s Kurds had hoped that the sacrifices made in the name of the international community to help crush the Islamic State group’s “caliphate” would pay off. But instead of supporting their political project, the United States is pulling out of Syria altogether, ruining the minority’s aspirations for more autonomy.
The Sochi agreement defines the contours of the debacle for the Kurdish forces, who still controlled close to a third of Syria two weeks ago and have now lost almost everything. “For the Kurds, this is the end of Rojava, of their dreams of autonomy,” is how Fabrice Balanche, a geographer specialized in Syrian affairs, summed it up. The fate of Rojava - the name Kurds give to their region - was sealed in a handshake late Tuesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Turkey was granted the right to remain fully deployed in an Arab-majority area it has dubbed a “safe zone” that was the main target of an offensive it launched on Oct 9. It stretches along 120 km and is 32 km deep, forming a zone into which Erdogan wants to send back some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees his country hosts.
Massacre averted
The Turkish assault was made possible by a pullback of US troops deployed along the border as a buffer force between their NATO ally Turkey and the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The withdrawal by their erstwhile ally left the Kurds completely in the lurch, forcing them to turn to the Damascus regime for protection from an expanded Turkish assault. Government forces, who are backed by the Russian military, rushed north within days, ostensibly to pin back Turkish-backed Syrian proxies but also to reclaim control of swathes of territory that the regime started leaving in 2012.
In Sochi, the deal reached by Syria’s two main foreign brokers also requires Kurdish forces to pull back to a line 30 km from the border along its entire length (440 km). The implementation of that article, which the outgunned Kurdish forces are in no position to resist, involves relinquishing control of some of their main towns. The Sochi agreement includes an exception for Qamishli, the de facto capital of the now defunct autonomous region. “In terms of loss of territory, they lose everything,” said Balanche. “Damascus reclaims control of everything that Turkey does not occupy.”
The only positive thing the Putin-Erdogan bargain does for the Kurds is to freeze the Turkish offensive and avert another phase of bloodletting. Dozens of civilians and more than 250 Kurdish fighters were killed in the offensive Ankara has dubbed “Operation Peace Spring”. The SDF say they have also lost 11,000 fighters in five years of ground operations under the command of the US-led coalition against IS. The head of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, had made clear after the start of Turkey’s assault that compromises were preferable to “genocide”.