7 - Kurdish statehood: Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria

Summary

KURDS IN SYRIA

No accurate data are currently available on the numbers of Kurds in Syria. Until 2000, the government of Syria denied that Syria had an indigenous Kurdish population. The PYD-led administration conducted a census in 2016 of the areas under their control, but unfortunately questions about ethnicity and religion of the respondents were excluded from the census. It is estimated that Kurds make up as much as 9 per cent of Syria's population, comprising around 1.6 million people. The distribution of Kurds between the three non-contiguous enclaves of Jazira, Jarablus (Kobani) and Kurd Dagh (Afrin), which have the largest Kurdish concentrations, are 40, 30 and 10 per cent respectively, with the remaining 20 per cent scattered across Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo (Allsopp & van Wilgenburg 2019: 15).

The rapid rise to power of the PYD and its armed wings – the People's Protection Units (Yekineyen Parastina Gel; YPG (male) and Yekineyen Parastina Jin; YPJ (female)) – supported by popular uprisings in Kurdish cities and villages in north and north-east Syria (known as the Rojava Revolution), and the establishment of the AANES, are among the unexpected turns in the Syrian conflict. Using social movement theories, other key factors instrumental to this include structural conditions and political opportunities: namely, civil unrest in Syria and a weakened Syrian regime, strong transnational support for the PYD/YPG from the Iraq-based PKK and an informal deal struck between the PKK (under the name of the PYD) and the Bashar al-Assad government in 2011. Under this deal, the Syrian regime agreed to withdraw its forces from the three Kurdish-majority northern enclaves and hand over governance to the Kurds under PYD leadership, in return for the PYD agreeing to police the Kurdish communities in the north and north-east, ensuring that they withdraw from mass protests. Later in 2015, a tactical partnership was agreed between the PYD and the USA in order to defeat IS after the liberation of Kobani. This partnership is still active in 2023, although US objectives have partially shifted from defeating IS to countering the Syrian regime and Iran. Such international support has further enhanced the PYD's prominence in the north and north-east of Syria. Indeed, following the defeat of IS, the AANES expanded its sphere of control to the Arab-majority provinces of Manbij (2016), Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor (2019).