Flight of Icarus? The PYD’s Precarious Rise in Syria

[Piling]

A report from the International Crisis group :

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With the Syrian regime and opposition locked in a see-saw battle, Kurdish forces have consolidated control over large portions of the country’s north. Their principal players, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG), now dominate three large, non-contiguous enclaves of Kurdish-majority territory along the Turkish border, over which the PYD proclaimed in November 2013 the transitional administration of Rojava (Western Kurdistan). Kurdish governance is unprecedented in Syria and for the PYD, an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish insurgent movement PKK, from which it draws ideological, organisational and military support. But it is unclear whether this is a first step toward stability and the Kurdish aspiration for national recognition, or merely a respite while the civil war focuses elsewhere. The PYD alone will not determine the fate of Syria’s north, but it could greatly increase its chances by broadening its popular appeal and cooperating with other local forces.

For all its successes, the PYD’s rise is in no small part illusory, attributable less to its own prowess than to its links with other regional forces. Perhaps most important is its de facto alliance with the regime, which handed territories over to it while continuing to give material support to those territories. The party’s gains also flow from its backing from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkarane Kurdistan, PKK), outlawed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and U.S. and long active over the border in Turkey. The PYD is in practice an ideological, organisational and military part of this leftist group, of which the umbrella organisation is in theory the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (Koma Ciwakên Kürdistan, KCK). It benefits ideologically from the prestige of Abdullah Öcalan, the movement’s long-time leader; and with the PKK’s backing, the YPG has become the immediate region’s strongest military force, one whose success in fending off jihadi militants is perhaps the single most important reason for the Kurds’ waxing fortunes.

Ironically however, these same factors, crucial to the PYD’s success, are also its Achilles heel. First, its PKK heritage has encumbered the party with a rigid, authoritarian culture and vague program that are out of sync with popular expectations. Heavy-handed governance prompts at best grudging acquiescence from a constituency whose younger generation, particularly, appears to aspire to something different. Syrian Kurds have since the 1980s constituted up to one third of the members of the PKK, whose past bombings and murders of civilians have rendered the insurgency a pariah in Western capitals; affiliation with it blocks efforts to gain international legitimacy.

Secondly, suspected collaboration with the regime has taken a toll on its popularity. The Damascus authorities have maintained a light albeit firm presence in PYD-controlled areas, reportedly acting mostly beneath the surface. Even as they relinquished control over certain state assets (notably administrative and security buildings) to the PYD, they have maintained their hold on, and continue to disseminate, state resources without which the Rojava project would wither.

Thirdly, the PYD’s competition for dominance with would-be allies, most importantly the Kurdish Democratic Party of Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, has created popular disenchantment and fatigue; this has left room for regional powers – notably Turkey and Iran – to manipulate the various sides in pursuit of their own interests. Barzani is on good terms with Ankara and Washington, so the PYD has few allies other than Damascus, Iran and, to an extent, the Nouri al-Maliki-led government in Baghdad.

These challenges raise questions about the depth and durability of the Rojava project. For PYD supporters, it is the kernel of future Kurdish self-rule. For detractors, it is an empty shell, a tool of the regime. It is hard to identify a way forward for Rojava. Its dependence on the regime alienates constituents, yet any step toward Kurdish partners and other actors risks jeopardising its dominance on the ground by undermining relations with Damascus.

Kurdish rights – not to mention longer-term local stability – are unlikely to be realised by the PYD forsaking its natural allies for a partnership of convenience with the same regime that long denied them. What all peoples of northern Syria need, Kurdish and non-Kurdish, is a common strategy for dealing with both Damascus and the minority communities in the region. This would require that the PYD:

decrease its heavy reliance on its own military and the regime and instead broaden its support base among both Kurds and non-Kurdish populations, as well as the more pragmatic strands of the Syrian opposition;
prepare, jointly with its support base, a strategy to replace the regime as a service provider and ensure the region’s access to resources; and
diversify relations with foreign powers to diminish their ability to exploit communal tensions in their own interests.
Bringing northern Syria together would be no mean task, but the reward could be as great as the mission is difficult: emancipation from a regime that someday is likely to turn brutal attention back to the country’s north.

Erbil/Brussels, 8 May 2014

The full report can be downloaded in pdf :

http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/File ... -syria.pdf

[Anthea]

A report from the International Crisis group :

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With the Syrian regime and opposition locked in a see-saw battle, Kurdish forces have consolidated control over large portions of the country’s north. Their principal players, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG), now dominate three large, non-contiguous enclaves of Kurdish-majority territory along the Turkish border, over which the PYD proclaimed in November 2013 the transitional administration of Rojava (Western Kurdistan). Kurdish governance is unprecedented in Syria and for the PYD, an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish insurgent movement PKK, from which it draws ideological, organisational and military support. But it is unclear whether this is a first step toward stability and the Kurdish aspiration for national recognition, or merely a respite while the civil war focuses elsewhere. The PYD alone will not determine the fate of Syria’s north, but it could greatly increase its chances by broadening its popular appeal and cooperating with other local forces.

For all its successes, the PYD’s rise is in no small part illusory, attributable less to its own prowess than to its links with other regional forces. Perhaps most important is its de facto alliance with the regime, which handed territories over to it while continuing to give material support to those territories. The party’s gains also flow from its backing from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkarane Kurdistan, PKK), outlawed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and U.S. and long active over the border in Turkey. The PYD is in practice an ideological, organisational and military part of this leftist group, of which the umbrella organisation is in theory the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (Koma Ciwakên Kürdistan, KCK). It benefits ideologically from the prestige of Abdullah Öcalan, the movement’s long-time leader; and with the PKK’s backing, the YPG has become the immediate region’s strongest military force, one whose success in fending off jihadi militants is perhaps the single most important reason for the Kurds’ waxing fortunes.

Ironically however, these same factors, crucial to the PYD’s success, are also its Achilles heel. First, its PKK heritage has encumbered the party with a rigid, authoritarian culture and vague program that are out of sync with popular expectations. Heavy-handed governance prompts at best grudging acquiescence from a constituency whose younger generation, particularly, appears to aspire to something different. Syrian Kurds have since the 1980s constituted up to one third of the members of the PKK, whose past bombings and murders of civilians have rendered the insurgency a pariah in Western capitals; affiliation with it blocks efforts to gain international legitimacy.

Secondly, suspected collaboration with the regime has taken a toll on its popularity. The Damascus authorities have maintained a light albeit firm presence in PYD-controlled areas, reportedly acting mostly beneath the surface. Even as they relinquished control over certain state assets (notably administrative and security buildings) to the PYD, they have maintained their hold on, and continue to disseminate, state resources without which the Rojava project would wither.

Thirdly, the PYD’s competition for dominance with would-be allies, most importantly the Kurdish Democratic Party of Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, has created popular disenchantment and fatigue; this has left room for regional powers – notably Turkey and Iran – to manipulate the various sides in pursuit of their own interests. Barzani is on good terms with Ankara and Washington, so the PYD has few allies other than Damascus, Iran and, to an extent, the Nouri al-Maliki-led government in Baghdad.

These challenges raise questions about the depth and durability of the Rojava project. For PYD supporters, it is the kernel of future Kurdish self-rule. For detractors, it is an empty shell, a tool of the regime. It is hard to identify a way forward for Rojava. Its dependence on the regime alienates constituents, yet any step toward Kurdish partners and other actors risks jeopardising its dominance on the ground by undermining relations with Damascus.

Kurdish rights – not to mention longer-term local stability – are unlikely to be realised by the PYD forsaking its natural allies for a partnership of convenience with the same regime that long denied them. What all peoples of northern Syria need, Kurdish and non-Kurdish, is a common strategy for dealing with both Damascus and the minority communities in the region. This would require that the PYD:

decrease its heavy reliance on its own military and the regime and instead broaden its support base among both Kurds and non-Kurdish populations, as well as the more pragmatic strands of the Syrian opposition;
prepare, jointly with its support base, a strategy to replace the regime as a service provider and ensure the region’s access to resources; and
diversify relations with foreign powers to diminish their ability to exploit communal tensions in their own interests.
Bringing northern Syria together would be no mean task, but the reward could be as great as the mission is difficult: emancipation from a regime that someday is likely to turn brutal attention back to the country’s north.

Erbil/Brussels, 8 May 2014

The full report can be downloaded in pdf :

http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/File ... -syria.pdf

Thank you

Very interesting especially the parts about the PYD working with the much loved Syrian regime

I will have to read the full report later on - but read it I will

[Piling]

The map in the report is interesting to study in the aim to understand the precarious and unstable situation in all Nothern Syria, especially in that the so-called 'Rojava' which is, in fact, 3 fragile spots of PYD areas.

[Anthea]

The KNC’s political ambitions quickly ran up against the PYD’s sense of entitlement and intent to retain the lead in governance. They clashed over the interpretation of power sharing: the PYD was prepared to go no further than allowing others to participate in its institutions, provided they operated within its ideological framework; the KNC expected the PYD to surrender half its power.

Accordingly, the PYD rejected entry of peshmerga fighters into the country under their own leadership – affiliated with Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) – threatening to “fight back if one single fighter steps in”. Instead, it proposed to merge KNC fighters into the YPG under the latter’s leadership.

So now we know why Kurdistan is not able to help the Kurds of Syrian occupied West Kurdistan - and why the region has become Ocalanistan

[Anthea]

The sudden return of PYD leader Salih Muslim from years of exile in Qandil raised suspicions among Kurdish rivals that the PYD had struck a deal with Damascus that allowed the party back into Syria in return for taking over Kurdish areas and suppressing anti-regime activity.

The PYD’s growing influence largely has come at the expense of other Kurdish groups. In particular, it has prevented emergence of new, rival militias while forcing existing ones to cooperate with or join PYD forces on their terms. For Kurds looking for means to defend their communities, cooperation with the YPG often is the sole option.

Reception of PYD rule by Syria’s Kurds has been mixed. Suspicion toward all political parties has deepened since the 2011 uprising, especially among the younger generation, frustrated with the divisions and what they see as manifestly self-serving policies of Syrian Kurdish parties.

Among those who live in areas under its control, there is widespread appreciation for the YPG’s ability to provide protection, particularly as attacks by jihadis grow in number and intensity. Still, the movement – which had scant support prior to the uprising – has won few converts. Many who rallied to the PYD-administration or joined YPG forces did so chiefly for lack of a viable alternative. A Kurdish resident from Tell Tamr said: “If it weren’t for the YPG, there would be no Kurds left in al-Jazee ra. But, to tell you the truth, no one understands the Apuciin [followers of Apo, an Öcalan nickname]. Many join YPG forces to ensure their own self-defence, to defend their families and land”

Attitudes toward the PYD are shaped by several factors: its presumed cooperation with the Syrian regime; the PKK’s outsized influence; and the perception of aspiration to hegemonic rule. Concerns include the fear that the apparent alliance with Damascus will poison future relations between the Kurds and other Syrians and that the regime is pursuing a divide-and-rule strategy, backing the PYD to create disunity among the Kurds.

A KNC member from Qamishli said: “The regime splits each community, then chooses proxies among Kurds, Arabs and Christians. Among Kurds it chose the PYD, pitting Kurds against Kurds. This [PYD] administration is nothing but an administration of regime allies.

Just a few extracts to wet the appetite - the report has to be read in it's entirety