Analysis-Syrian Kurdish groups on the back foot as power balance shifts By Reuters

By Orhan Kereman, Tom Perry and Tuvan Gumrukcu

QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT/ANKARA (Reuters) – With hostile groups backed by Turkey mobilizing against them in northern Syria and Damascus ruled by a group friendly to Ankara, Syria’s main Kurdish groups are on the back foot as they seek to maintain political interests carved out during the 13-year war.

Part of a stateless ethnic group spanning Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Syria, the Kurds have so far been among the few winners of the Syrian conflict, controlling nearly a quarter of the country and commanding a powerful armed group that is a key US ally. In the fight against the “Islamic State”.

But the balance of power has tipped against them since the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept into Damascus this month, toppling President Bashar al-Assad, two analysts and a senior official told Reuters. Western diplomat.

The seismic shift in Syria is expected to deepen Turkish influence, just as the change in the US administration raises questions about how long Washington will continue to support the country’s Kurdish-led forces.

For Turkey, Kurdish groups represent a threat to national security. Ankara views them as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and other powers.

Syrian Kurdish groups are “in deep, deep trouble,” said Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a US-based think tank.

“The balance in Syria has shifted fundamentally in favor of Turkish-backed or Turkish-allied groups, and Turkey seems determined to make the most of it.”

This shift has been reflected in renewed fighting for control in the north, where Turkish-backed armed groups known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) have made military advances against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Fanar al-Keit, a senior official in the Kurdish-led regional administration, told Reuters that ousting Assad, whose Arab nationalist Baath Party has oppressed the Kurds for decades, offers an opportunity to unite the divided country.

He said the administration was open to dialogue with Turkey, but the conflict in the north showed that Ankara had “very bad intentions.”

“It will certainly push the region towards … a new conflict,” he added.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he expected foreign countries to end support for Kurdish militants after Assad’s ouster, as Ankara seeks to isolate the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that led the SDF alliance.

Answering questions from Reuters, a Turkish official said that the main reason for the conflict is “not Turkey’s view of the region, but the fact that the PKK/YPG is a terrorist organization.”

“PKK/YPG elements must lay down their arms and leave Syria,” the official said.

SDF commander Mazlum Abdi acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time in an interview with Reuters on Thursday, saying they had helped fight Islamic State and would return home if a ceasefire was agreed with Turkey. He denied any organizational links with the PKK.

FEMINISM AND ISLAMISM

Meanwhile, the new leadership in Damascus is showing warmth to Ankara and has shown it wants to return all of Syria to central rule, a potential challenge to decentralization in favor of the Kurds.

While Turkey provides direct support to the SNA, it, along with other states, considers the HTS a terrorist group because of its al Qaeda past.

Despite this, Ankara is believed to have considerable influence over the group, a senior Western diplomat said. “The Turks can obviously influence them more than anyone else.”

HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa told a Turkish newspaper that Assad’s ouster was “not only a victory for the Syrian people, but also for the Turkish people.”

The Turkish official said that HTS was not and had never been under Ankara’s control, calling it an entity “we were in contact with due to circumstances” and adding that many Western countries did as well.

Syrian Kurdish groups led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the allied YPG militia have taken control of much of the north since an uprising against Assad began in 2011. They have established their own administration while claiming autonomy is, not independence.

Their politics, with an emphasis on socialism and feminism, differ sharply from the Islamism of the HTS.

Their territory grew when US-led forces partnered with the SDF in the campaign against Islamic State, seizing majority-Arab areas.

Turkish-backed SNA groups intensified their campaign against the SDF as Assad fell, capturing the city of Manbij on December 9.

Washington has brokered a ceasefire, but the SDF has said Turkey and its allies have not complied, and a Turkish defense ministry official said there was no such deal.

US support for the SDF has been a source of tension with its NATO ally Turkey, which Washington sees as a key partner in countering Islamic State, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned will try to use this period to rebuild capabilities in Syria. The SDF still holds tens of thousands of detainees linked to the armed group.

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said last weekend that Turkey saw no signs of a resurgence of the Islamic State in Syria.On Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his German counterpart during talks in Ankara that alternatives need to be found to manage the camps and prisons. , where detainees are kept.

Separately, US Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs Barbara Leaf said on Friday that Washington was working with Ankara and the SDF to find “a managed transition in terms of the role of the SDF in that part of the country”.

President Joe Biden’s administration has announced that US troops will remain in Syria, but President-elect Donald Trump could remove them when he takes office on January 20.

LETTER TO TRUMP

During his first administration, Trump tried to withdraw from Syria but faced pressure at home and from US allies.

In a Dec. 17 letter to Trump reviewed by Reuters, a senior Syrian Kurdish official, Ilham Ahmed, said Turkey was preparing to invade the northeast before he took office.

Turkey’s plan “threatens to undo years of progress in the fight against terrorism,” he wrote. “We believe you have the power to prevent this disaster.”

Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On December 16, Trump said that Turkey would “hold the key” to what happens in Syria, but did not announce its plans for US forces stationed there.

“The Kurds are in an unenviable situation,” says Joshua Landis, an expert on Syria at the University of Oklahoma. “When Damascus consolidates its power, it will move in the region. The US cannot stay there forever.”

HTS leader Shaara told Britain’s BBC that the Kurds were “part of our people” and “there should be no division of Syria”, adding that weapons should be fully in the hands of the state.

Shaara acknowledged one of Turkey’s main concerns, the presence of non-Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria, and said: “We do not accept that Syrian lands threaten and destabilize Turkey or elsewhere.”

He pledged to work through dialogue and negotiations to find a “peaceful solution to the problem,” saying he believed preliminary contacts had been made “between the Kurds or the SDF organization in northeastern Syria.”

A Kurdish official, Keith, said his administration wants a “democratic Syria, a decentralized Syria, a Syria that represents all Syrians of all sects, religions and ethnicities,” describing them as red lines. The SDF will be the “core of the future Syrian army.” , he added.

SDF commander Abdi confirmed in an interview with Reuters that contact had been made with the HTS to avoid clashes between their forces, but said Ankara would try to drive a wedge between Damascus and the Kurdish-led administration.

Still, he said there was strong support from international parties, including the US-led coalition, for the SDF to join a “new political phase” in Damascus, calling it a “great opportunity”.

“We are going to join this phase after a complete ceasefire between us and Turkey and related factions,” he said.

(Reporting by Orhan Kereman in Ghamishli, Syria, Tom Perry in Beirut and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Humeira Pamuk in Washington and Darren Butler in Istanbul; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alexandra Zavis)