The size of the ‘Kurdish Issue’ and the US gift to Bashar al-Assad and Putin and Tehran
I want to lay out what I think is the Kurdish issue. Let’s call it that for now the Kurdish issue, it’s actually one of the largest conflicts in the Middle East, just in terms of population size alone. And I think many people who focus on the Middle East, still don’t actually realize the size and complexity of the problem. It’s also one of the most protracted armed conflicts in the world with Kurdish insurgencies dating back over a century so way before the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] was even founded. There were Kurdish insurgencies in the 19th century, in all four countries where you have Kurdish minorities and yet despite its constancy, the Kurdish issue has never received the attention that it deserves from any administration, not from the Trump administration, not from Obama, not from any administration. And under Trump, in particular, US policy was skewed towards Turkey. This continued even after Michael Flynn was removed as national security advisor after revelations of his ties to Turkish officials. And this resulted really in disastrous foreign policies in Syria, which undermined US national security interests. It was often discussed in the media as the US betraying the Kurds when Trump ordered the withdrawal in October 2019. But to refer to it as a betrayal of Kurds actually minimizes the issue. It makes the issue appear smaller than in fact it is, because this US withdrawal from Syria in October 2019, was a gift to Bashar al-Assad and Putin and Tehran. So it was actually in violation of the US national security policies.
Recommendations to the Biden Administration for the Syrian conflict
Finding a resolution to this let’s call it Kurdish issue should be a top priority for the Biden administration to his credit president Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Erdogan himself, recognized that there was no military solution to this problem that a political settlement was needed and Erdogan himself oversaw negotiations with the PKK between 2012 and 2015. However, very soon, often immediately after those peace talks broke down, the Turkish military stepped up their interventions in both Syria and Iraq, as well as operations inside Turkey. And as a result of this hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians were forcibly displaced. The majority of them were actually Arabs, Arab civilians, as well as Yazidis, Assyrians, Armenians, Syriac Christians, and Kurds, of course. In the Kurdistan region of Iraq, hundreds of villages have been effectively depopulated because of the recurrent conflict in the border areas, and even Sinjar the ancestral homeland of the Yazidis, which is very far away from the Turkish border has been hit by Turkish airstrikes.
So this is no longer a small insurgency. This is no longer a civil war that is confined to the military and the PKK, This conflict affects virtually all of the religious and ethnic groups in the region in Turkey, in Northern Syria and in Northern Iraq. So, if the Biden administration would make finding a resolution to this conflict a priority, it could be the key to unlocking a number of interrelated challenges. And I believe that the Biden administration should convene a coalition of diverse stakeholders to mediate this conflict similar to the global coalition that was also assembled under American leadership, which successfully defeated the Islamic State. Now, of course, this coalition wouldn’t have to include 79 members, but it’s more than just a conflict, as I said, between Turkey and the PKK. It does not only involve those four countries, but there are many diverse stakeholders that I think have a keen interest in resolving this conflict.
Just as Turkey came to accept and even profit from trade relations with the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Turkey entrepreneurs could handsomely benefit from the reconstruction of Northeast Syria and Northeast Syria is in desperate need of reconstruction. Roads need to be built, schools need to be built, hospitals need to be built. If anyone who’s ever visited this region, Raqqa for example, Deir Ez Zor, these areas still lie for the most part in rubble for years. And it is a security threat that we allow Raqqa to continue and Deir Ez Zor to continue, that the people there have to continue living amongst the rubble. They need to be able to rebuild their lives. So rebuilding Northeast Syria should be a priority and there are Turkish entrepreneurs who could handsomely benefit from this. So there is a constituency within Turkey that also has an interest in this.
Our Kurdish partners in Northeast Syria, I think will look to us for leadership. So a peaceful resolution to this conflict would not only, and again, it’s a Turkish-Kurdish-Syrian-Iraqi conflict, not just the Turkish-PKK conflict. This would also, I believe potentially opened the door to greater political pluralism and all that these countries. In Turkey, in Northeast Syria, and also in Iraq and the Kurdistan region of Iraq. This would help ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS, not the temporary defeat, but enduring defeat of ISIS And it would potentially set the groundwork for real economic development in Northeast Syria. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it would also allow that these endangered religious minorities in particularly Yazidis and Assyrians, Syrian Syriac, Armenian Christians who have inhabited this region for millennia, that they would be able to continue to survive in their homelands because they have actually been some of the first targets.
The religious minorities under the Turkish occupation in Syria
When the Islamic State attacked, it would take control of a region in Syria let’s say, one of the first things they did was to attack the Yazidis and Christians, and also to issue fatwas to regulate women’s behavior. When the Turkish-backed militias attacked Afrin or Ras al Ayin [Sari Kani], Tal Abyad [ Giri Spi] also one of the first things they did was to dismantle the gender-egalitarian structures that have been set up by the autonomous administration to physically attack women, in particular, Havrin Khalaf who was assassinated by Turkish-backed rebels and also to target Christians and Yazidis. Now, I am not suggesting that there is an equivalency between ISIS and the so-called Syrian National Army, or these Turkish backed rebels that are now occupying Afrin, Sari Kani, and Ras Al Ayin. But it is empirically a fact that that is one of their priorities to attack women, dismantle the gender-egalitarian structures, and also to attack the Christians and Yazidis. When I was in Syria in September, I spoke to many Yazidis who were forcibly displaced from Sari Kani, who cannot go back. I talked to Christians who were forcibly displaced from Sari Kani, and they told me that when those rebel groups came in, one of the first things they did was to go to the churches and to shut off the generators. The churches in Sari Kani. I’ve been told no Syriac or Syric pastors left in Sari Kani.
What we’re witnessing is an ethnic cleansing of the Yazidis and Christians from regions that they’ve inhabited for centuries. And this could happen in our lifetime, on our watch, if no action is taken by the Biden administration. And this is why I would urge that this should be a top priority within the first hundred days of the Biden administration taking office.