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BEIRUTLast month, while the worlds attention was focused on battles raging in Syrias two largest cities, a quiet transformation was taking place in the countrys oil-rich northeast where about two million minority Kurds live.
In mid-July, regime forces began pulling back from several towns and villages near the Turkish border. They ceded de facto control to armed Kurdish fighters who have since set up checkpoints, hoisted Kurdish flags, and began exercising a degree of autonomy unheard of before.
It is an extraordinary development for a community that has long been oppressed and discriminated against by the Assad regime, one that threatens to upset a decades-long geopolitical balance involving Syria, Turkey and Iraq.
The Kurds are emerging as one of the major winners of the crisis in Syria, said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics. They have begun laying the foundation for an autonomous region like their counterparts in Iraq.
But this raises alarm bells for Turkey, one of the key state backers of the rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad and a country where Kurdish rebels have been fighting a violent struggle for self-rule for the past 28 years.
Turkey is increasingly worried that the chaos in Syria will open up a new base for Kurdish rebels to press their campaign. Highlighting those fears, skirmishes between soldiers and Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey this week have killed and wounded dozens.
The government in Ankara has warned it would not tolerate any rebel threats from Syrian territory and has staged a number of military drills across the border to put a fine point on it.
Turkey has emerged as one of the most vociferous critics of the Assad regime and serves as a base for generals of the Free Syrian Army rebel group and the Syrian National Council opposition group.
In relinquishing border areas to Kurdish fighters, the Syrian regime may have had a dual motive diverting forces from there to shore up overstretched troops fighting in the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, and other parts of the country, as well as sending a warning to Turkey.
With the Syrian governments control over northern parts of the country diminishing . . . Ankaras primary concern is that the Syrian Kurds may seek to establish an autonomous state in the region, said an August security briefing by British-based risk analysis firm Maplecroft.
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria and make up around 10 to 15 per cent of the countrys 23 million people. Most of them live in the northeastern Hasakeh province near the border with Turkey. Large neighbourhoods of Damascus and Aleppo also are Kurdish-dominated.
Kurds have long complained of neglect and discrimination. Assads government for years argued they are not Syrians, but Kurds who fled from Iraq or Turkey.
With the uprising, both the Syrian government and opposition forces began reaching out to the long-marginalized minority whose support could tip the balance in the conflict. Early on in the revolt, Assad ceded ground on a major demand, granting citizenship to some 200,000 Kurds who were registered as aliens before.
The opposition has staged demonstrations under Kurdish names in hopes of rallying the community against Assad. In June, Abdelbaset Sieda, a Kurd, was elected as head of the Syrian National Council.
Last month, villagers say, Syrian security forces simply abandoned posts in several border towns and villages. They were quickly replaced by fighters from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD. The group is affiliated with Turkeys Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which is suspected of having ties with Assads regime.
Gerges called the regime pullout a win-win situation for the Syrian regime.
They know they cannot take on the Kurdish community and they realized that they have common interests with the PYD because the common enemy for both of them is Turkey, Gerges said.
PYD officials deny any links to the PKK or the Syrian regime. They say they will not allow Syrian authorities to return to the areas they relinquished but nor will they allow Syrian rebels to enter their areas.
It is a unique opportunity for the Kurdish community in Syria, and residents say a politicization process has already started.
For the first time, Kurdish flags have replaced Syrian flags in towns and villages near the border areas, and cultural centres have sprung up and some people have begun taking classes in the Kurdish language, which was forbidden by Assad. Kurdish parties also are beginning to build networks with their counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Mustafa Osso, a Kurdish lawyer and activist in the Syrian city of Qamishli, says the reports of Kurdish empowerment and growing autonomy are exaggerated, and that Syrian forces may return at any minute.
But what is sure is that there will be no going back to the previous era of subordination and oppression, Osso said.
In mid-July, regime forces began pulling back from several towns and villages near the Turkish border. They ceded de facto control to armed Kurdish fighters who have since set up checkpoints, hoisted Kurdish flags, and began exercising a degree of autonomy unheard of before.
It is an extraordinary development for a community that has long been oppressed and discriminated against by the Assad regime, one that threatens to upset a decades-long geopolitical balance involving Syria, Turkey and Iraq.
The Kurds are emerging as one of the major winners of the crisis in Syria, said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics. They have begun laying the foundation for an autonomous region like their counterparts in Iraq.
But this raises alarm bells for Turkey, one of the key state backers of the rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad and a country where Kurdish rebels have been fighting a violent struggle for self-rule for the past 28 years.
Turkey is increasingly worried that the chaos in Syria will open up a new base for Kurdish rebels to press their campaign. Highlighting those fears, skirmishes between soldiers and Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey this week have killed and wounded dozens.
The government in Ankara has warned it would not tolerate any rebel threats from Syrian territory and has staged a number of military drills across the border to put a fine point on it.
Turkey has emerged as one of the most vociferous critics of the Assad regime and serves as a base for generals of the Free Syrian Army rebel group and the Syrian National Council opposition group.
In relinquishing border areas to Kurdish fighters, the Syrian regime may have had a dual motive diverting forces from there to shore up overstretched troops fighting in the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, and other parts of the country, as well as sending a warning to Turkey.
With the Syrian governments control over northern parts of the country diminishing . . . Ankaras primary concern is that the Syrian Kurds may seek to establish an autonomous state in the region, said an August security briefing by British-based risk analysis firm Maplecroft.
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria and make up around 10 to 15 per cent of the countrys 23 million people. Most of them live in the northeastern Hasakeh province near the border with Turkey. Large neighbourhoods of Damascus and Aleppo also are Kurdish-dominated.
Kurds have long complained of neglect and discrimination. Assads government for years argued they are not Syrians, but Kurds who fled from Iraq or Turkey.
With the uprising, both the Syrian government and opposition forces began reaching out to the long-marginalized minority whose support could tip the balance in the conflict. Early on in the revolt, Assad ceded ground on a major demand, granting citizenship to some 200,000 Kurds who were registered as aliens before.
The opposition has staged demonstrations under Kurdish names in hopes of rallying the community against Assad. In June, Abdelbaset Sieda, a Kurd, was elected as head of the Syrian National Council.
Last month, villagers say, Syrian security forces simply abandoned posts in several border towns and villages. They were quickly replaced by fighters from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD. The group is affiliated with Turkeys Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which is suspected of having ties with Assads regime.
Gerges called the regime pullout a win-win situation for the Syrian regime.
They know they cannot take on the Kurdish community and they realized that they have common interests with the PYD because the common enemy for both of them is Turkey, Gerges said.
PYD officials deny any links to the PKK or the Syrian regime. They say they will not allow Syrian authorities to return to the areas they relinquished but nor will they allow Syrian rebels to enter their areas.
It is a unique opportunity for the Kurdish community in Syria, and residents say a politicization process has already started.
For the first time, Kurdish flags have replaced Syrian flags in towns and villages near the border areas, and cultural centres have sprung up and some people have begun taking classes in the Kurdish language, which was forbidden by Assad. Kurdish parties also are beginning to build networks with their counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Mustafa Osso, a Kurdish lawyer and activist in the Syrian city of Qamishli, says the reports of Kurdish empowerment and growing autonomy are exaggerated, and that Syrian forces may return at any minute.
But what is sure is that there will be no going back to the previous era of subordination and oppression, Osso said.
