Russia-turkey deal shatters Kurdish dream of self-rule
IN VAIN: Kurds hoped that sacrifices made to help crush IS would pay off
BEIRUT: A Turkish-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 IS group 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 specialised in Syrian affairs, summed it up.
The fate of Rojava — the name Kurds give to their region — was sealed in a handshake late on Tuesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Turkey was granted the right to remain fully deployed in an Arabmajority area it has dubbed a “safe zone” that was the main target of an offensive it launched on October 9.
It stretches along 120 kilometres and is 32 kilometres 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 kilometres from the border along its entire length (440 kilometres).
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.